^!mt 


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CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


XLhe  Centurc  35ooKd  ot  Visctul  Science 

A.  RUSSELL  BOND,  Gesebal  Edrob 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

Edwin  E.  Slosson 
ARTIFICIAL  LIGHT 

M.  LUCEIESH 

THE  NEW  STONE  AGE 

Harrison  E.  Howe 
THE  CONQUERING  ENGINEER 

Charles  Whiting  Baker 


Other  titles  will  be  published  later 


prom  "America's  Munitions" 

THE  PRODUCTION  OP  NEW  AND  STRONGER  FORMS  OF  BTEEL  IS  ONE  OF  THE 
GREATEST  TRIUMPHS   OF   MODERN   CHEMISTRY 

The  photograph  shows  the  manufacture  of  a  1 2-inch  gun  at  the  plant  of  the  Midvale 
Steel  Company  during  the  late  war.  The  gun  tube,  41  feet  long,  has  just  been  drawn 
from  the  furnace  where  it  was  tempered  at  whit  e  heat  and  is  now  ready  for  quenching 


XTbe  Century  JSoofts  of  XIl6Ctul  Science 


Creative  Chemistry 

DESCRIPTIVE  OF   RECENT    ACHIEVE- 
MENTS IN  THE  CHEMICAL  INDUSTRIES 


BY 

EDWIN  E.  SLOSSON,  M.S.,  Ph.D. 

UTERARY  EDITOR  OF  THE  JSDEPENDEhT.  ASSOCIATB 
IN  COLUMBIA  SCHOOL  OF  JOURNALISM 

Author  of  "Great  American  Universitie*,"  **  Major 

Prophets  of  Today,"  "Six  Major  Prophets," 

"On  Acylhalogenamine  Derivatives  and 

the  Beckmann  Rearrangement," 

"Composition  of  Wyoming 

Petroleum,"  etc. 


WITH  MANY 
ILLUSTRATIONS         /" 


:>\ 


■-« 


NEW  YORK 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1920 


w<^ 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
The  Centuey  Co. 


Copyright,  1<»17,  1918,  1919,  by 
Thb  Independent  Corporation 


Published,  October,  1919 


TO  MY  FIRST  TEACHER 

PROFESSOR  E.  H.  S.  BAILEY 

OF    THE   CNIVERSITY    OF   KANSAS 

AND  MY  LAST  TEACHER 

PROFESSOR  JULIUS  STIEGLITZ 

OF  THE   UKIVKRSITY   OF   CHICAGO 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  GRATEFULLY 
DEDICATED 


^C'H 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I  Three  Periods  of  Progress  .     .     .     •     ^     .     .  3 

II    Nitrogen *     .     -r    «  14 

III  Feeding  the  Soil      ........     ^     *  37 

IV  Coal-Tar  Colors 60 

V  Synthetic  Perfumes  and  Flavors      ....  93 

VI    Cellulose 110 

VII    Synthetic  Plastics .  128 

VIII    The  Race  for  Rl'bber 145 

IX    The  Rival  Sugars 164 

X    What  Comes  from  CcmN      .     .     .     .     ^     .     .  181 

XI    Solidified  Sunshine 196 

XII    Fighting  with  Fumes ^     .  218 

XIII  Products  of  the  Electric  Furnace  .     .    ^    *  236 

XIV  Metals,  Old  and  New  .....♦,  ,,  263 
Reading  References  .  .  .  r  .  »  fc»  .  297 
Index     .     .     ^,     .     ,     t^     .     ^    >:    «    «    i^:    ,  309 


A  CARD  OF  THANKS 

This  book  originated  in  a  series  of  articles  prepared  for  The 
Independent  in  1917-18  for  the  purpose  of  interesting  the 
general  reader  in  the  recent  achievements  of  industrial  chem- 
istry and  providing  supplementary  reading  for  students  of 
chemistry  in  colleges  and  high  schools.  I  am  indebted  to 
Hamilton  Holt,  editor  of  The  Independent,  and  to  Karl  V.  S. 
Howland,  its  publisher,  for  stimulus  and  opportunity  to  un- 
dertake the  writing  of  these  pages  and  for  the  privilege  of 
reprinting  them  in  this  form. 

In  gathering  the  material  for  this  volume  I  have  received 
the  kindly  aid  of  so  many  companies  and  individuals  that  it  is 
impossible  to  thank  them  all  but  I  must  at  least  mention  as 
those  to  whom  I  am  especially  grateful  for  information,  ad- 
vice and  criticism :  Thomas  H.  Norton  of  the  Department  of 
Commerce;  Dr.  Bernhard  C.  Hesse;  H.  S.  Bailey  of  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture;  Professor  Julius  Stieglitz  of  the 
University  of  Chicago;  L.  E.  Edgar  of  the  Du  Pont  de 
Nemours  Company;  Milton  Whitney  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of 
Soils;  Dr.  H.  N.  McCoy;  K.  F.  Kellerman  of  the  Bureau  of 
Plant  Industry. 

E.  E.  S. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  production  of  new  and  stronger  forms  of  steel  is  one 

of  the  greatest  triumphs  of  modem  chemistry  Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAOS 

The  hand  grenades  contain  potential  chemical  energy 
capable  of  causing  a  vast  amount  of  destruction 
when  released 16 

Women  in  a  munition  plant  engaged  in  the  manufacture 

of  tri-nitro-toluol 17 

A  chemical  reaction  on  a  large  scale 32 

Burning  air  in  a  Birkeland-Eyde  furnace  at  the  DuPont 

plant 33 

A  battery  of  Birkeland-Eyde  furnaces  for  the  fixation  of 

nitrogen  at  the  DuPont  plant 33 

Fixing  nitrogen  by  calcium  carbide 40 

A  barrow  full  of  potash  salts  extracted  from  six  tons  of 

green  kelp  by  the  government  chemists  ....     41 

Nature 's  silent  method  of  nitrogen  fixation 41 

In  order  to  secure  a  new  supply  of  potash  salts  the  United 
States  Government  set  up  an  experimental  plant  at 
Sutherland,  California,  for  the  utilization  of  kelp  .     52 

Overhead  suction  at  the  San  Diego  wharf  pumping  kelp 

from  the  barge  to  the  digestion  tanks 53 

The  kelp  harvester  gathering  the  seaweed  from  the  Pacific 

Ocean 53 

A  battery  of  Koppers  by-product  coke-ovens  at  the  plant 
of  the  Bethlehem  Steel  Company,  Sparrows  Point, 
Maryland 60 

In  these  mixing  vats  at  the  Buffalo  Works,  aniline  dyes 

are  prepared •.     ^1 

A  paper  mill  in  action 120 

Cellulose  from  wood  pulp  is  now  made  into  a  large  variety 
of  useful  articles  of  which  a  few  examples  are  here 
pictured      ....     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .  121 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Plantation  rubber 160 

Forest  rubber 160 

In  making  garden  hose  the  rubber  is  formed  into  a  tube 
by  the  machine  on  the  right  and  coiled  on  the  table 

to  the  left 161 

The  rival  sugars 176 

Interior  of  a  sugar  mill  showing  the  machinery  for  crush- 
ing cane  to  extract  the  juice 177 

Vacuum  pans  of  the  American  Sugar  Refinery  Company  .  177 
Cotton  seed  oil  as  it  is  squeezed  from  the  seed  by  the 

presses 200 

Cotton  seed  oil  as  it  comes  from  the  compressors  flowing 

out  of  the  faucets 201 

Splitting  coconuts  on  the  island  of  Tahiti 216 

The  electric  current  passing  through  salt  water  in  these 
cells  decomposes  the  salt  into  caustic  soda  and 
chlorine  gas 217 

Germans  starting  a  gas  attack  on  the  Russian  lines  .     .  224 
Filling  the  cannisters  of  gas  masks  with  charcoal  made 

from  fruit  pits — Long  Island  City 225 

The  chlorpicrin  plant  at  the  Edgewood  Arsenal  .      .     .  234 
Repairing  the  broken  stern  post  of  the  U.8.S.  Northern 

Pacific,  the  biggest  marine  weld  in  the  world  .     .     .  235 
Making  aloxite  in  the  electric  furnaces  by  fusing  coke 

and  banxite 240 

A  block  of  carborundum  crystals 241 

Making  carborundum  in  the  electric  furnace  ....  241 
Types  of  gas  mask  used  by  America,  the  Allies  and  Ger- 
many during  the  war 256 

Pumping  melted  white  phosphorus  into  hand  grenades 

filled  with  water — Edgewood  Arsenal 257 

Filling  shell  with  ''mustard  gas" 257 

Photomicrographs  showing  the  structure  of  steel  made  by 

Professor  E.  G.  Mahin  of  Purdue  University  .      .  272 
The  microscopic  structure  of  metals  ,.,,,..  273 


INTRODUCTION 
By  Julius  Stieglitz 

Formerly  President  of  the  American    Chemical   Society,   Professor   of 
Chemistry   in  The   University   of    Chicago 

The  recent  war  as  never  before  in  the  history  of  the 
world  brought  to  the  nations  of  the  earth  a  realization 
of  the  vital  place  which  the  science  of  chemistry  holds 
in  the  development  of  the  resources  of  a  nation.  Some 
of  the  most  picturesque  features  of  this  awakening 
reached  the  great  public  through  the  press.  Thus,  the 
adventurous  trips  of  the  Deutschland  with  its  cargoes 
of  concentrated  aniline  dyes,  valued  at  millions  of  dol- 
lars, emphasized  as  no  other  incident  our  former 
dependence  upon  Germany  for  these  products  of  her 
chemical  industries. 

The  public  read,  too,  that  her  chemists  saved  Ger- 
many from  an  early  disastrous  defeat,  both  in  the  field 
of  military  operations  and  in  the  matter  of  economic 
supplies:  unquestionably,  without  the  tremendous  ex- 
pansion of  her  plants  for  the  production  of  nitrates  and 
ammonia  from  the  air  by  the  processes  of  Haber,  Ost- 
wald  and  others  of  her  great  chemists,  the  war  would 
have  ended  in  1915,  or  early  in  1916,  from  exhaustion 
of  Germany's  supplies  of  nitrate  explosives,  if  not  in- 
deed from  exhaustion  of  her  food  supplies  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  lack  of  nitrate  and  ammonia  fertilizer 
for  her  fields.  Inventions  of  substitutes  for  cotton, 
copper,  rubber,  wool  and  many  other  basic  needs  have 
been  reported. 


INTRODUCTION 

These  feats  of  chemistry,  performed  under  the  stress 
of  dire  necessity,  have,  no  doubt,  excited  the  wonder 
and  interest  of  our  public.  It  is  far  more  important  at 
this  time,  however,  when  both  for  war  and  for  peace 
needs,  the  resources  of  our  country  are  strained  to  the 
utmost,  that  the  public  should  awaken  to  a  clear  realiza- 
tion of  what  this  science  of  chemistry  really  means  for 
mankind,  to  the  realization  that  its  wizardry  permeates 
the  whole  life  of  the  nation  as  a  vitalizing,  protective 
and  constructive  agent  very  much  in  the  same  way  as 
our  blood,  coursing  through  our  veins  and  arteries, 
carries  the  constructive,  defensive  and  life-bringing 
materials  to  every  organ  in  the  body. 

If  the  layman  will  but  understand  that  chemistry  is 
the  fundamental  science  of  the  transformation  of  mat- 
ter, he  will  readily  accept  the  validity  of  this  sweeping 
assertion :  he  will  realize,  for  instance,  why  exactly  the 
same  fundamental  laws  of  the  science  apply  to,  and 
make  possible  scientific  control  of,  such  widely  diver- 
gent national  industries  as  agriculture  and  steel  manu- 
facturing. It  governs  the  transformation  of  the  salts, 
minerals  and  humus  of  our  fields  and  the  components 
of  the  air  into  corn,  wheat,  cotton  and  the  innumerable 
other  products  of  the  soil ;  it  governs  no  less  the  trans- 
formation of  crude  ores  into  steel  and  alloys,  which, 
with  the  cunning  born  of  chemical  knowledge,  may  be 
given  practically  any  conceivable  quality  of  hardness, 
elasticity,  toughness  or  strength.  And  exactly  the 
same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  hundreds  of  national  ac- 
tivities that  lie  between  the  two  extremes  of  agricul- 
ture and  steel  manufacture ! 

Moreover,  the  domain  of  the  science  of  the  transform 


INTEODUCTION 

mation  of  matter  includes  even  life  itself  as  its  loftiest 
phase :  from  our  birth  to  our  return  to  dust  the  laws  of 
chemistry  are  the  controlling  laws  of  life,  health,  dis- 
ease and  death,  and  the  ever  clearer  recognition  of  this 
relation  is  the  strongest  force  that  is  raising  medicine 
from  the  uncertain  realm  of  an  art  to  the  safer  sphere 
of  an  exact  science.  To  many  scientific  minds  it  has 
even  become  evident  that  those  most  wonderful  facts 
of  life,  heredity  and  character,  must  find  their  final  ex- 
planation in  the  chemical  composition  of  the  compo- 
nents of  life  producing,  germinal  protoplasm:  mere 
form  and  shape  are  no  longer  supreme  but  are  rele- 
gated to  their  proper  place  as  the  housing  only  of  the 
living  matter  which  functions  chemically. 

It  must  be  quite  obvious  now  why  thoughtful  men  are 
insisting  that  the  public  should  be  awakened  to  a  broad 
realization  of  the  significance  of  the  science  of  chem- 
istry for  its  national  life. 

It  is  a  difficult  science  in  its  details,  because  it  has 
found  that  it  can  best  interpret  the  visible  phenomena 
of  the  material  world  on  the  basis  of  the  conception  of 
invisible  minute  material  atoms  and  molecules,  each  a 
world  in  itself,  whose  properties  may  be  nevertheless 
accurately  deduced  by  a  rigorous  logic  controlling  the 
highest  type  of  scientific  imagination.  But  a  layman 
is  interested  in  the  wonders  of  great  bridges  and  of 
monumental  buildings  without  feeling  the  need  of  in- 
quiring into  the  painfully  minute  and  extended  calcula- 
tions of  the  engineer  and  architect  of  the  strains  and 
stresses  to  which  every  pin  and  every  bar  of  the  great 
bridge  and  every  bit  of  stone,  every  foot  of  arch  in  a 
monumental  edifice,  will  be  exposed.    So  the  public  may 


INTRODUCTION 

understand  and  appreciate  with  the  keenest  interest 
the  results  of  chemical  effort  without  the  need  of  in- 
struction in  the  intricacies  of  our  logic,  of  our  dealings 
with  our  minute,  invisible  particles. 

The  whole  nation's  welfare  demands,  indeed,  that 
our  public  be  enlightened  in  the  matter  of  the  relation 
of  chemistry  to  our  national  life.  Thus,  if  our  com- 
merce and  our  industries  are  to  survive  the  terrific 
competition  that  must  follow  the  reestablishment  of 
peace,  our  public  must  insist  that  its  representatives  in 
Congress  preserve  that  independence  in  chemical  man- 
ufacturing which  the  war  has  forced  upon  us  in  the 
matter  of  dyes,  of  numberless  invaluable  remedies  to 
cure  and  relieve  suffering ;  in  the  matter,  too,  of  hun- 
dreds of  chemicals,  which  our  industries  need  for  their 
successful  existence. 

Unless  we  are  independent  in  these  fields,  how  easily 
might  an  unscrupulous  competing  nation  do  us  untold 
harm  by  the  mere  device,  for  instance,  of  delaying  sup- 
plies, or  by  sending  inferior  materials  to  this  country  or 
by  underselling  our  chemical  manufacturers  and,  after 
the  destruction  of  our  chemical  independence,  handicap- 
ping our  industries  as  they  were  in  the  first  year  or 
two  of  the  great  war!  This  is  not  a  mere  possibility 
created  by  the  imagination,  for  our  economic  history 
contains  instance  after  instance  of  the  purposeful  un- 
dermining and  destruction  of  our  industries  in  finer 
chemicals,  dyes  and  drugs  by  foreign  interests  bent  on 
preserving  their  monopoly.  If  one  recalls  that 
through  control,  for  instance,  of  dyes  by  a  competing 
nation,  control  is  in  fact  also  established  over  prod- 
ucts, valued  in  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars,  in 


INTBODUCTION 

which  dyes  enter  as  an  essential  factor,  one  may  realize 
indeed  the  tremendous  industrial  and  conmaercial 
power  which  is  controlled  by  the  single  lever — chem- 
ical dyes.  Of  even  more  vital  moment  is  chemistry  in 
the  domain  of  health :  the  pitiful  calls  of  our  hospitals 
for  local  anesthetics  to  alleviate  suffering  on  the  oper- 
ating table,  the  frantic  appeals  for  the  hypnotic  that 
soothes  the  epileptic  and  staves  off  his  seizure,  the  al- 
most furious  demands  for  remedy  after  remedy,  that 
came  in  the  early  years  of  the  war,  are  still  ringing  in 
the  hearts  of  many  of  us.  No  wonder  that  our  small 
army  of  chemists  is  grimly  determined  not  to  give  up 
the  independence  in  chemistry  which  war  has  achieved 
for  us  I  Only  a  widely  enlightened  public,  however, 
can  insure  the  permanence  of  what  farseeing  men  have 
started  to  accomplish  in  developing  the  power  of  chem- 
istry through  research  in  every  domain  which  chemis- 
try touches. 

The  general  public  should  realize  that  in  the  support 
of  great  chemical  research  laboratories  of  universities 
and  technical  schools  it  will  be  sustaining  important 
centers  from  which  the  science  which  improves  prod- 
ucts, abolishes  waste,  establishes  new  industries  and 
preserves  life,  may  reach  out  helpfully  into  all  the 
activities  of  our  great  nation,  that  are  dependent  on 
the  transformation  of  matter. 

The  public  is  to  be  congratulated  upon  the  fact  that 
the  writer  of  the  present  volume  is  better  qualified 
than  any  other  man  in  the  country  to  bring  home  to  his 
readers  some  of  the  great  results  of  modem  chemical 
activity  as  well  as  some  of  the  big  problems  which  must 
continue  to  engage  the  attention  of  our  chemists.    Dr. 


INTEODUCTION 

Slosson  has  indeed  the  unique  quality  of  combining  an 
exact  and  intimate  knowledge  of  chemistry  with  the 
exquisite  clarity  and  pointedness  of  expression  of  a 
born  writer. 

We  have  here  an  exposition  by  a  master  mind,  an 
exposition  shorn  of  the  terrifying  and  obscuring  tech- 
nicalities of  the  lecture  room,  that  will  be  as  absorbing 
reading  as  any  thrilling  romance.  For  the  story  of 
scientific  achievement  is  the  greatest  epic  the  world  has 
ever  known,  and  like  the  great  national  epics  of  bygone 
ages,  should  quicken  the  life  of  the  nation  by  a  realiza- 
tion of  its  powers  and  a  picture  of  its  possibilities. 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


La  Chimie  possede  cette  faculte  creatrice  a 
un  degre  plus  eminent  que  les  autres  sciences, 
parce  qu'elle  penetre  plus  profondement  et 
atteint  jusqu'aux  elements  naturels  des  etres. 

— Berthelot, 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


THEEE  PEEIODS  OF  PEOGRESS 

The  story  of  Eobinson  Crusoe  is  an  allegory  of 
human  history.  Man  is  a  castaway  upon  a  desert 
planet,  isolated  from  other  inhabited  worlds — if  there 
be  any  such — by  millions  of  miles  of  untraversable 
space.  He  is  absolutely  dependent  upon  his  own  exer- 
tions, for  this  world  of  his,  as  Wells  says,  has  no  im- 
ports except  meteorites  and  no  exports  of  any  kind. 
Man  has  no  wrecked  ship  from  a  former  civilization 
to  draw  upon  for  tools  and  weapons,  but  must  utilize 
as  best  he  may  such  raw  materials  as  he  can  find. 
In  this  conquest  of  nature  by  man  there  are  three 
stages  distinguishable : 

1.  The  Appropriative  Period 

2.  The  Adaptive  Period 

3.  The  Creative  Period 

These  eras  overlap,  and  the  human  race,  or  rather 
its  vanguard,  civilized  man,  may  be  passing  into  the 
third  stage  in  one  field  of  human  endeavor  while  still 
lingering  in  the  second  or  first  in  some  other  respect. 
But  in  any  particular  line  this  sequence  is  followed. 
The  primitive  man  picks  up  whatever  he  can  find  avail- 
able for  his  use.  His  successor  in  the  next  stage  of 
culture   shapes  and  develops   this   crude   instrument 

3 


4  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

until  it  becomes  more  suitable  for  his  purpose.  But 
in  the  course  of  time  man  often  finds  that  he  can  make 
something  new  which  is  better  than  anything  in  nature 
or  naturally  produced.  The  savage  discovers.  The 
barbarian  improves.  The  civilized  man  invents.  The 
first  finds.  The  second  fashions.  The  third  fab- 
ricates. 

The  primitive  man  was  a  troglodyte.  He  sought 
shelter  in  any  cave  or  crevice  that  he  could  find.  Later 
he  dug  it  out  to  make  it  more  roomy  and  piled  up  stones 
at  the  entrance  to  keep  out  the  wild  beasts.  This  arti- 
ficial barricade,  this  false  fagade,  was  gradually  ex- 
tended and  solidified  until  finally  man  could  build  a 
cave  for  himself  anywhere  in  the  open  field  from 
stones  he  quarried  out  of  .the  hill.  But  man  was  not 
content  with  such  materials  and  now  puts  up  a  building 
which  may  be  composed  of  steel,  brick,  terra  cotta, 
glass,  concrete  and  plaster,  none  of  which  materials 
are  to  be  found  in  nature. 

The  untutored  savage  might  cross  a  stream  astride  a 
floating  tree  trunk.  By  and  by  it  occurred  to  him  to 
sit  inside  the  log  instead  of  on  it,  so  he  hollowed  it  out 
with  fire  or  flint.  Later,  much  later,  he  constructed  an 
ocean  liner. 

Cain,  or  whoever  it  was  first  slew  his  brother  man, 
made  use  of  a  stone  or  stick.  Afterward  it  was  found 
a  better  weapon  could  be  made  by  tying  the  stone  to  the 
end  of  the  stick,  and  as  murder  developed  into  a  fine  art 
the  stick  was  converted  into  the  bow  and  this  into  the 
catapult  and  finally  into  the  cannon,  while  the  stone 
was  developed  into  the  high  explosive  projectile. 

The  first  music  to  soothe  the  savage  breast  was  the 


THREE  PEE-IODS  OF  PROGRESS  5 

soughing  of  the  wind  through  the  trees.  Then  strings 
were  stretched  across  a  crevice  for  the  wind  to  play 
upon  and  there  was  the  ^olian  harp.  The  second 
stage  was  entered  when  Hermes  strung  the  tortoise 
shell  and  plucked  it  with  his  fingers  and  when  Athena, 
raising  the  wind  from  her  own  lungs,  forced  it  through 
a  hollow  reed.  From  these  beginnings  we  have  the 
organ  and  the  orchestra,  producing  such  sounds  as 
nothing  in  nature  can  equal. 

The  first  idol  was  doubtless  a  meteorite  fallen  from 
heaven  or  a  fulgurite  or  concretion  picked  up  from  the 
sand,  bearing  some  slight  resemblance  to  a  human 
being.  Later  man  made  gods  in  his  own  image,  and  so 
sculpture  and  painting  grew  until  now  the  creations 
of  futuristic  art  could  be  worshiped — ^if  one  wanted 
to — without  violation  of  the  second  commandment,  for 
they  are  not  the  likeness  of  anything  that  is  in  heaven 
above  or  that  is  in  the  earth  beneath  or  that  is  in  the 
water  under  the  earth. 

In  the  textile  industry  the  same  development  is  ob- 
servable. The  primitive  man  used  the  skins  of  animals 
he  had  slain  to  protect  his  own  skin.  In  the  course  of 
time  he — or  more  probably  his  wife,  for  it  is  to  the 
women  rather  than  to  the  men  that  we  owe  the  early 
steps  in  the  arts  and  sciences — fastened  leaves  together 
or  pounded  out  bark  to  make  garments.  Later  fibers 
were  plucked  from  the  sheepskin,  the  cocoon  and  the 
cotton-ball,  twisted  together  and  woven  into  cloth. 
Nowadays  it  is  possible  to  make  a  complete  suit  of 
clothes,  from  hat  to  shoes,  of  any  desirable  texture, 
form  and  color,  and  not  include  any  substance  to  be 
found  in  nature.     The  first  metals  available  were  those 


6  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEYi 

found  free  in  nature  such  as  gold  and  copper.  In  a 
later  age  it  was  found  possible  to  extract  iron  from  its 
ores  and  today  we  have  artificial  alloys  made  of  multi- 
farious combinations  of  rare  metals.  The  medicine 
man  dosed  his  patients  with  decoctions  of  such  roots 
and  herbs  as  had  a  bad  taste  or  queer  look.  The  phar- 
macist discovered  how  to  extract  from  these  their 
medicinal  principle  such  as  morphine,  quinine  and  co- 
caine, and  the  creative  chemist  has  discovered  how  to 
make  innumerable  drugs  adapted  to  specific  diseases 
and  individual  idiosyncrasies. 

In  the  later  or  creative  stages  we  enter  the  domain 
of  chemistry,  for  it  is  the  chemist  alone  who  possesses 
the  power  of  reducing  a  substance  to  its  constituent 
atoms  and  from  them  producing  substances  entirely 
new.  But  the  chemist  has  been  slow  to  realize  his 
unique  power  and  the  world  has  been  still  slower  to 
utilize  his  invaluable  services.  Until  recently  indeed 
the  leaders  of  chemical  science  expressly  disclaimed 
what  should  have  been  their  proudest  boast.  The 
French  chemist  Lavoisier  in  1793  defined  chemistry  as 
**the  science  of  analysis.''  The  German  chemist  Ger- 
hardt  in  1844  said:  **I  have  demonstrated  that  the 
chemist  works  in  opposition  to  living  nature,  that  he 
burns,  destroys,  analyzes,  that  the  vital  force  alone 
operates  by  s}Tithesis,  that  it  reconstructs  the  edifice 
torn  do-^m  by  the  chemical  forces. ' ' 

It  is  quite  true  that  chemists  up  to  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  were  so  absorbed  in  the  destructive  side  of 
their  science  that  they  were  blind  to  the  constructive 
side  of  it.  In  this  respect  they  were  less  prescient  than 
their  contemned  predecessors,  the  alchemists,  who,  fool- 


THKEE  PERIODS  OF  PROGRESS  7 

isH  and  pretentious  as  they  were,  aspired  at  least  to  the 
formation  of  something  new. 

It  was,  I  think,  the  French  chemist  Berthelot  who 
first  clearly  perceived  the  double  aspect  of  chemistry, 
for  he  defined  it  as  '  *  the  science  of  analysis  and  synthe- 
sis/' of  taking  apart  and  of  putting  together.  The 
motto  of  chemistry,  as  of  all  the  empirical  sciences,  is 
savoir  c'est  pouvoir,  to  know  in  order  to  do.  This  is 
the  pragmatic  test  of  all  useful  knowledge.  Berthelot 
goes  on  to  say: 

Chemistry  creates  its  object.  This  creative  faculty,  com- 
parable to  that  of  art-  itself,  distinguishes  it  essentially  from 
the  natural  and  historical  sciences.  .  .  .  These  sciences  do 
not  control  their  object.  Thus  they  are  too  often  condemned 
to  an  eternal  impotence  in  the  search  for  truth  of  which  they 
must  content  themselves  with  possessing  some  few  and  often 
uncertain  fragments.  On  the  contrary,  the  experimental  sci- 
ences have  the  power  to  realize  their  conjectures.  .  .  .  What 
they  dream  of  that  they  can  manifest  in  actuality.  .  .  . 

Chemistry  possesses  this  creative  faculty  to  a  more  eminent 
degree  than  the  other  sciences  because  it  penetrates  more  pro- 
foundly and  attains  even  to  the  natural  elements  of  exist- 
ences. 

Since  Berthelot 's  time,  that  is,  within  the  last  fifty 
years,  chemistry  has  won  its  chief  triumphs  in  the  field 
of  synthesis.  Organic  chemistry,  that  is,  the  chemistry 
of  the  carbon  compounds,  so  called  because  it  was  for- 
merly assumed,  as  Gerhardt  says,  that  they  could  only 
be  formed  by  ** vital  force''  of  organized  plants  and 
animals,  has  taken  a  development  far  overshadowing 
inorganic  chemistry,  or  the  chemistry  of  mineral  sub- 


8  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

stances.  Chemists  have  prepared  or  know  how  to  pre- 
pare hundreds  of  thousands  of  such  **  organic  com- 
pounds/' few  of  which  occur  in  the  natural  world. 

But  this  conception  of  chemistry  is  yet  far  from  hav- 
ing been  accepted  by  the  world  at  large.  This  was 
brought  forcibly  to  my  attention  during  the  publication 
of  these  chapters  in  **The  Independent  by  various 
letters,  raising  such  objections  as  the  following: 

When  you  say  in  your  article  on  *'What  Comes  from  Coal 
Tar"  that  '^Art  can  go  ahead  of  nature  in  the  dyestuff  busi- 
ness" you  have  doubtless  for  the  moment  allowed  your  enthu- 
siasm  to   sweep   you   away   from  the   moorings  of   reason. 
Shakespeare,  anticipating  you  and  your  **  Creative  Chemis- 
try," has  shown  the  utter  untenableness  of  your  position: 
Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean. 
But  nature  makes  that  mean :  so  o  'er  that  art, 
Which,  you  say,  adds  to  nature,  is  an  art 
That  nature  makes. 
How  can  you  say  that  art  surpasses  nature  when  you  know 
very  well  that  nothing  man  is  able  to  make  can  in  any  way 
equal  the  perfection  of  all  nature's  products? 

It  is  blasphemous  of  you  to  claim  that  man  can  improve 
the  works  of  God  2is  they  appear  in  nature.  Only  the  Crea- 
tor can  create.  Man  only  imitates,  destroys  or  defiles  God's 
handiwork. 

No,  it  was  not  in  momentary  absence  of  mind  that  I 
claimed  that  man  could  improve  upon  nature  in  the 
making  of  dyes.  I  not  only  said  it,  but  I  proved  it. 
I  not  only  proved  it,  but  I  can  back  it  up.  I  will  give 
a  million  dollars  to  anybody  finding  in  nature  dyestuff  s 
as  numerous,  varied,  brilliant,  pure  and  cheap  as  those 
that  are  manufactured  in  the  laboratory.     I  haven't 


THREE  PERIODS  OF  PROGRESS  9 

that  amount  of  money  with  me  at  the  moment,  but  the 
dyers  would  be  glad  to  put  it  up  for  the  discovery  of 
a  satisfactory  natural  source  for  their  tinctorial  mate- 
rials. This  is  not  an  opinion  of  mine  but  a  matter  of 
fact,  not  to  be  decided  by  Shakespeare,  who  was  not 
acquainted  with  the  aniline  products. 

Shakespeare  in  the  passage  quoted  is  indulging  in  his 
favorite  amusement  of  a  play  upon  words.  There  is  a 
possible  and  a  proper  sense  of  the  word ^* nature''  that 
makes  it  include  everything  except  the  supernatural. 
Therefore  man  and  all  his  works  belong  to  the  realm 
of  nature.  A  tenement  house  in  this  sense  is  as  **  nat- 
ural" as  a  bird's  nest,  a  peapod  or  a  crystal. 

But  such  a  wide  extension  of  the  term  destroys  its 
distinctive  value.  It  is  more  convenient  and  quite  as 
correct  to  use  ** nature"  as  I  have  used  it,  in  contradis- 
tinction to  ^^art,"  meaning  by  the  former  the  products 
of  the  mineral,  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  exclud- 
ing the  designs,  inventions  and  constructions  of  man 
which  we  call  *^art." 

We  cannot,  in  a  general  and  abstract  fashion,  say 
which  is  superior,  art  or  nature,  because  it  all  depends 
on  the  point  of  view.  The  worm  loves  a  rotten  log  into 
which  he  can  bore.  Man  prefers  a  steel  cabinet  into 
which  the  worm  cannot  bore.  If  man  cannot  improve 
upon  nature  he  has  no  motive  for  making  anything. 
Artificial  products  are  therefore  superior  to  natural 
products  as  measured  by  man 's  convenience,  otherwise 
they  would  have  no  reason  for  existence. 

Science  and  Christianity  are  at  one  in  abhorring  the 
natural  man  and  calling  upon  the  civilized  man  to  fight 
and  subdue  him.     The  conquest  of  nature,  not  the  imi- 


10  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

tation  of  nature,  is  the  whole  duty  of  man.  Metch- 
nikoff  and  St.  Paul  unite  in  criticizing  the  body  we  were 
born  with.  St.  Augustine  and  Huxley  are  in  agree- 
ment as  to  the  eternal  conflict  between  man  and  nature. 
In  his  Romanes  lecture  on  ** Evolution  and  Ethics'' 
Huxley  said:  *^The  ethical  progress  of  society  de- 
pends, not  on  imitating  the  cosmic  process,  still  less  on 
running  away  from  it,  but  on  combating  it,''  and 
again:  **The  history  of  civilization  details  the  steps 
by  which  man  has  succeeded  in  building  up  an  artificial 
world  within  the  cosmos." 

There  speaks  the  true  evolutionist,  whose  one  desire 
is  to  get  away  from  nature  as  fast  and  far  as  possible. 
Imitate  Nature?  Yes,  when  we  cannot  improve  upon 
her.  Admire  Nature  ?  Possibly,  but  be  not  blinded  to 
her  defects.  Learn  from  Nature?  We  should  sit 
humbly  at  her  feet  until  we  can  stand  erect  and  go  our 
own  way.  Love  Nature  ?  Never !  She  is  our  treach- 
erous and  unsleeping  foe,  ever  to  be  feared  and  watched 
and  circumvented,  for  at  any  moment  and  in  spite  of  all 
our  vigilance  she  may  wipe  out  the  human  race  by 
famine,  pestilence  or  earthquake  and  within  a  few  cen- 
turies obliterate  every  trace  of  its  achievement.  The 
wild  beasts  that  man  has  kept  at  bay  for  a  few  centuries 
will  in  the  end  invade  his  palaces:  the  moss  will  en- 
velop his  walls  and  the  lichen  disrupt  them.  The  clam 
may  survive  man  by  as  many  millennia  as  it  preceded 
him.  In  the  ultimate  devolution  of  the  world  animal 
life  will  disappear  before  vegetable,  the  higher  plants 
will  be  killed  off  before  the  lower,  and  finally  the  three 
kingdoms  of  nature  will  be  reduced  to  one,  the  mineral. 
Civilized  man,  enthroned  in  his  citadel  and  defended 


THKEE  PERIODS  OF  PEOGEESS  11 

by  all  the  forces  of  nature  that  he  has  brought  under 
his  control,  is  after  all  in  the  same  situation  as  a  sav- 
age, shivering  in  the  darkness  beside  his  fire,  listening 
to  the  pad  of  predatory  feet,  the  rustle  of  serpents  and 
the  cry  of  birds  of  prey,  knowing  that  only  the  fire 
keeps  his  enemies  off,  but  knowing  too  that  every  stick 
he  lays  on  the  fire  lessens  his  fuel  supply  and  hastens 
the  inevitable  time  when  the  beasts  of  the  jungle  will 
make  their  fatal  rush. 

Chaos  is  the  *^ natural"  state  of  the  universe.  Cos- 
mos is  the  rare  and  temporary  exception.  Of  all  the 
million  spheres  this  is  apparently  the  only  one  habit- 
able and  of  this  only  a  small  part — the  reader  may  draw 
the  boundaries  to  suit  himself — can  be  called  civilized. 
Anarchy  is  the  natural  state  of  the  human  race.  It 
prevailed  exclusively  all  over  the  world  up  to  some  five 
thousand  years  ago,  since  which  a  few  peoples  have 
for  a  time  succeeded  in  establishing  a  certain  degree  of 
peace  and  order.  This,  however,  can  be  maintained 
only  by  strenuous  and  persistent  efforts,  for  society 
tends  naturally  to  sink  into  the  chaos  out  of  which  it  has 
arisen. 

It  is  only  by  overcoming  nature  that  man  can  rise. 
The  sole  salvation  for  the  human  race  lies  in  the  re- 
moval of  the  primal  curse,  the  sentence  of  hard  labor 
for  life  that  was  imposed  on  man  as  he  left  Paradise. 
Some  folks  are  trying  to  elevate  the  laboring  classes ; 
some  are  trying  to  keep  them  down.  The  scientist  has 
a  more  radical  remedy ;  he  wants  to  annihilate  the  la- 
boring classes  by  abolishing  labor.  There  is  no  longel 
any  need  for  human  labor  in  the  sense  of  personal  toil, 
for  the  physical  energy  necessary  to  accomplish  all 


12  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

kinds  of  work  may  be  obtained  from  external  sources 
and  it  can  be  directed  and  controlled  without  extreme 
exertion.  Man's  first  effort  in  this  direction  was  to 
throw  part  of  his  burden  upon  the  horse  and  ox  or  upon 
other  men.  But  within  the  last  century  it  has  been 
discovered  that  neither  human  nor  animal  servitude  is 
necessary  to  give  man  leisure  for  the  higher  life,  for  by 
means  of  the  machine  he  can  do  the  work  of  giants 
without  exhaustion.  But  the  introduction  of  machines, 
like  every  other  step  of  human  progress,  met  with  the 
most  violent  opposition  from  those  it  was  to  benefit. 
*  *  Smash  'em ! ' '  cried  the  workingman.  *  *  Smash  'em ! ' ' 
cried  the  poet.  ** Smash  'em!"  cried  the  artist. 
** Smash  'em!"  cried  the  theologian.  *^ Smash  'em!" 
cried  the  magistrate.  This  opposition  yet  lingers  and 
every  new  invention,  especially  in  chemistry,  is  greeted 
with  general  distrust  and  often  with  legislative  prohi- 
bition. 

Man  is  the  tool-using  animal,  and  the  machine,  that 
is,  the  power-driven  tool,  is  his  peculiar  achievement. 
It  is  purely  a  creation  of  the  human  mind.  The  wheel, 
its  essential  feature,  does  not  exist  in  nature.  The 
lever,  with  its  to-and-fro  motion,  we  find  in  the  limbs 
of  all  animals,  but  the  continuous  and  revolving  lever, 
the  wheel,  cannot  be  formed  of  bone  and  flesh.  Man  as 
a  motive  power  is  a  poor  thing.  He  can  only  convert 
three  or  four  thousand  calories  of  energy  a  day  and  he 
does  that  very  inefficiently.  But  he  can  make  an  engine 
that  will  handle  a  hundred  thousand  times  that,  twice 
as  efficiently  and  three  times  as  long.  In  this  way  only 
can  he  get  rid  of  pain  and  toil  and  gain  the  wealth  he 
wants. 


THEEE  PERIODS  OF  PROGRESS  13 

Gradually  then  he  will  substitute  for  the  natural 
world  an  artificial  world,  molded  nearer  to  his  heart's 
desire.  Man  the  Artif  ex  will  ultimately  master  Nature 
and  reign  supreme  over  his  own  creation  until  chaos 
shall  come  again.  In  the  ancient  drama  it  was  deus  ex 
machina  that  came  in  at  the  end  to  solve  the  problems 
of  the  play.  It  is  to  the  same  supernatural  agency,  the 
divinity  in  machinery,  that  we  must  look  for  the  salva- 
tion of  society.  It  is  by  means  of  applied  science  that 
the  earth  can  be  made  habitable  and  a  decent  human 
life  made  possible.  Creative  evolution  is  at  last  be- 
coming conscious. 


n 

NITKOGEN 
PRESEEVER  AND  DESTROYER  OF  LIFE 

In  the  eyes  of  the  chemist  the  Great  War  was  essen- 
tially a  series  of  explosive  reactions  resulting  in  the 
liberation  of  nitrogen.  Nothing  like  it  has  been  seen 
in  any  previous  wars.  The  first  battles  were  fought 
with  cellulose,  mostly  in  the  form  of  clubs.  The  next 
were  fought  with  silica,  mostly  in  the  form  of  flint 
arrowheads  and  spear-points.  Then  came  the  metals, 
bronze  to  begin  with  and  later  iron.  The  nitrogenous 
era  in  warfare  began  when  Friar  Roger  Bacon  or  Friar 
Schwartz — ^whichever  it  was — ground  together  in  his 
mortar  saltpeter,  charcoal  and  sulfur.  The  Chinese, 
to  be  sure,  had  invented  gunpowder  long  before,  but 
they — poor  innocents — did  not  know  of  anything  worse 
to  do  with  it  than  to  make  it  into  fire-crackers.  With 
the  introduction  of  ** villainous  saltpeter*'  war  ceased 
to  be  the  vocation  of  the  nobleman  and  since  the  noble- 
man had  no  other  vocation  he  began  to  become  extinct. 
A  bullet  fired  from  a  mile  away  is  no  respecter  of  per- 
sons. It  is  just  as  likely  to  kill  a  knight  as  a  peasant, 
and  a  brave  man  as  a  coward.  You  cannot  fence  with 
a  cannon  ball  nor  overawe  it  with  a  plumed  hat.  The 
only  thing  you  can  do  is  to  hide  and  shoot  back.  Now 
you  cannot  hide  if  you  send  up  a  column  of  smoke  by 
day  and  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night — the  most  conspicuous 
of  signals — every  time  you  shoot.     So  the  next  step 

14 


NITROGEN  15 

was  the  invention  of  a  smokeless  powder.  In  this  the 
oxygen  necessary  for  the  combustion  is  already  in  such 
close  combination  with  its  fuel,  the  carbon  and  hydro- 
gen, that  no  black  particles  of  carbon  can  get  away 
unburnt.  In  the  old-fashioned  gunpowder  the  oxygen 
necessary  for  the  combustion  of  the  carbon  and  sulfur 
was  in  a  separate  package,  in  the  molecule  of  potas- 
sium nitrate,  and  however  finely  the  mixture  was 
ground,  some  of  the  atoms,  in  the  excitement  of  the  ex- 
plosion, failed  to  find  their  proper  partners  at  the  mo- 
ment of  dispersal.  The  new  gunpowder  besides  being 
smokeless  is  ashless.  There  is  no  black  sticky  mass 
of  potassium  salts  left  to  foul  the  gun  barrel. 

The  gunpowder  period  of  warfare  was  actively  initi- 
ated at  the  battle  of  Cressy,  in  which,  as  a  contempo- 
rary historian  says,  ^*The  English  guns  made  noise  like 
thunder  and  caused  much  loss  in  men  and  horses.'' 
Smokeless  powder  as  invented  by  Paul  Vieille  was 
adopted  by  the  French  Government  in  1887.  This, 
then,  might  be  called  the  beginning  of  the  guncotton  or 
nitrocellulose  period — or,  perhaps  in  deference  to  the 
caveman's  club,  the  second  cellulose  period  of  human 
warfare.  Better,  doubtless,  to  call  it  the  *^high  ex- 
plosive period,"  for  various  other  nitro-compounds  be- 
sides guncotton  are  being  used. 

The  important  thing  to  note  is  that  all  the  explosives 
from  gunpowder  down  contain  nitrogen  as  the  essential 
element.  It  is  customary  to  call  nitrogen  **an  inert 
element"  because  it  was  hard  to  get  it  into  combina- 
tion with  other  elements.  It  might,  on  the  other  hand, 
be  looked  upon  as  an  active  element  because  it  acts  so 
energetically  in  getting  out  of  its  compounds.    We  can 


16  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

dodge  the  question  by  saying  that  nitrogen  is  a  most 
unreliable  and  unsociable  element.  Like  Kipling's  cat 
it  walks  by  its  wild  lone. 

It  is  not  so  bad  as  Argon  the  Lazy  and  the  other  celi- 
bate gases  of  that  family,  where  each  individual  atom 
goes  off  by  itself  and  absolutely  refuses  to  unite  even 
temporarily  with  any  other  atom.  The  nitrogen  atoms 
will  pair  off  with  each  other  and  stick  together,  but 
they  are  reluctant  to  associate  with  other  elements  and 
when  they  do  the  combination  is  likely  to  break  up  any 
moment.  You  all  know  people  like  that,  good  enough 
when  by  themselves  but  sure  to  break  up  any  club, 
church  or  society  they  get  into.  Now,  the  value  of 
nitrogen  in  warfare  is  due  to  the  fact  that  all  the  atoms 
desert  in  a  body  on  the  field  of  battle.  Millions  of  them 
may  be  lying  packed  in  a  gun  cartridge,  as  quiet  as  you 
please,  but  let  a  little  disturbance  start  in  the  neighbor- 
hood— say  a  grain  of  mercury  fulminate  flares  up — and 
all  the  nitrogen  atoms  get  to  trembling  so  violently 
that  they  cannot  be  restrained.  The  shock  spreads 
rapidly  through  the  whole  mass.  The  hydrogen  and 
carbon  atoms  catch  up  the  oxygen  and  in  an  instant 
they  are  off  on  a  stampede,  crowding  in  every  direc- 
tion to  find  an  exit,  and  getting  more  heated  up  all  the 
time.  The  only  movable  side  is  the  cannon  ball  in 
front,  so  they  all  pound  against  that  and  give  it  such 
a  shove  that  it  goes  ten  miles  before  it  stops.  The 
external  bombardment  by  the  cannon  ball  is,  therefore, 
preceded  by  an  internal  bombardment  on  the  cannon 
ball  by  the  molecules  of  the  hot  gases,  whose  speed  is 
about  as  great  as  the  speed  of  the  projectile  that  they 
propel. 


THE    HAND    GRENADES    WHICH    THESE    WOMEN    ARE    BORING 

win  contain  potential  chemical  energy  capable  of  causing  a  vast  am  otmt  of  destmction 
when  release!.  Dixring  the  warthe  American  Government  placed  ordersf or  bSaOOO.* 
ooo  such  grenades  as  are  here  shown 


NITROGEN  17 

The  active  agent  in  all  these  explosives  is  the  nitro- 
gen atom  in  combination  with  two  oxygen  atoms,  which 
the  chemist  calls  the  *  *  nitro  group ' '  and  which  he  repre- 
sents by  NO2.  This  group  was,  as  I  have  said,  orig- 
inally used  in  the  form  of  saltpeter  or  potassium  ni- 
trate, but  since  the  chemist  did  not  want  the  potassium 
part  of  it — for  it  fouled  his  guns — he  took  the  nitro 
group  out  of  the  nitrate  by  means  of  sulfuric  acid  and 
by  the  same  means  hooked  it  on  to  some  compound  of 
carbon  and  hydrogen  that  would  burn  without  leaving 
any  residue,  and  give  nothing  but  gases.  One  of  the 
simplest  of  these  hydrocarbon  derivatives  is  glycerin, 
the  same  as  you  use  for  sunburn.  This  mixed  with 
nitric  and  sulfuric  acids  gives  nitroglycerin,  an  easy 
thing  to  make,  though  I  should  not  advise  anybody  to 
try  making  it  unless  he  has  his  life  insured.  But  nitro- 
glycerin is  uncertain  stuff  to  keep  and  being  a  liquid  is 
awkward  to  handle.  So  it  was  mixed  with  sawdust  or 
porous  earth  or  something  else  that  would  soak  it  up. 
This  molded  into  sticks  is  our  ordinary  dynamite. 

If  instead  of  glycerin  we  take  cellulose  in  the  form 
of  wood  pulp  or  cotton  and  treat  this  with  nitric  acid 
in  the  presence  of  sulfuric  we  get  nitrocellulose  or  gun- 
cotton,  which  is  the  chief  ingredient  of  smokeless  pow- 
der. 

Now  guncotton  looks  like  common  cotton.  It  is  too 
light  and  loose  to  pack  well  into  a  gun.  So  it  is  dis- 
solved with  ether  and  alcohol  or  acetone  to  make  a 
plastic  mass  that  can  be  molded  into  rods  and  cut  into 
grains  of  suitable  shape  and  size  to  bum  at  the  proper 
speed. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  liquid  explosive,  nitroglycerin, 


18  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

that  has  to  be  soaked  up  in  some  porous  solid,  and  a 
porous  solid,  guncotton,  that  has  to  soak  up  some 
liquid.  "Why  not  solve  both  difficulties  together  by 
dissolving  the  guncotton  in  the  nitroglycerin  and  so 
get  a  double  explosive?  This  is  a  simple  idea.  Any 
of  us  can  see  the  sense  of  it — once  it  is  suggested  to  us. 
But  Alfred  Nobel,  the  Swedish  chemist,  who  thought  it 
out  first  in  1878,  made  millions  out  of  it.  Then,  appar- 
ently alarmed  at  the  possible  consequences  of  his  in- 
vention, he  bequeathed  the  fortune  he  had  made  by  it 
to  found  international  prizes  for  medical,  chemical  and 
physical  discoveries,  idealistic  literature  and  the  pro- 
motion of  peace.  But  his  posthumous  efforts  for  the 
advancement  of  civilization  and  the  abolition  of  war 
did  not  amount  to  much  and  his  high  explosives  were 
later  employed  to  blow  into  pieces  the  doctors,  chem- 
ists, authors  and  pacifists  he  wished  to  reward. 

NobePs  invention,  "cordite,'^  is  composed  of  nitro- 
glycerin and  nitrocellulose  with  a  little  mineral  jelly  or 
vaseline.  Besides  cordite  and  similar  mixtures  of 
nitroglycerin  and  nitrocellulose  there  are  two  other 
classes  of  high  explosives  in  common  use. 

One  is  made  from  carbolic  acid,  which  is  familiar  to 
us  all  by  its  use  as  a  disinfectant.  If  this  is  treated 
with  nitric  and  sulfuric  acids  we  get  from  it  picric  acid, 
a  yellow  crystalline  solid.  Every  government  has  its 
own  secret  formula  for  this  type  of  explosive.  The 
British  call  theirs  ** lyddite,'*  the  French  ** melinite'' 
and  the  Japanese  **shimose." 

The  third  kind  of  high  explosives  uses  as  its  base 
toluol.  This  is  not  so  familiar  to  us  as  glycerin,  cotton 
or  carbolic  acid.    It  is  one  of  the  coal  tar  products,  an 


NITEOGEN  19 

inflammable  liquid,  resembling  benzene.  When  treated 
with  nitric  acid  in  the  usual  way  it  takes  up  like  the 
others  three  nitro  groups  and  so  becomes  tri-nitro- 
toluol.  Kealizing  that  people  could  not  be  expected  to 
use  such  a  mouthful  of  a  word,  the  chemists  have  sug- 
gested various  pretty  nicknames,  trotyl,  tritol,  trinol, 
tolite  and  trilit,  but  the  public,  with  the  wilfulness  it 
always  shows  in  the  matter  of  names,  persists  in  calling 
it  TNT,  as  though  it  were  an  author  like  G.  B.  S.,  or 
G.  K.  C,  or  F.  P.  A.  TNT  is  the  latest  of  these  high 
explosives  and  in  some  ways  the  best  of  them.  Picric 
acid  has  the  bad  habit  of  attacking  the  metals  with 
which  it  rests  in  contact  forming  sensitive  picrates  that 
are  easily  set  off,  but  TNT  is  inert  toward  metals  and 
keeps  well.  TNT  melts  far  below  the  boiling  point  of 
water  so  can  be  readily  liquefied  and  poured  into  shells. 
It  is  insensitive  to  ordinary  shocks.  A  rifle  bullet  can 
be  fired  through  a  case  of  it  without  setting  it  off,  and 
if  lighted  with  a  match  it  burns  quietly.  The  amazing 
thing  about  these  modern  explosives,  the  organic  ni- 
trates, is  the  way  they  will  stand  banging  about  and 
burning,  yet  the  terrific  violence  with  which  they  blow 
up  when  shaken  by  an  explosive  wave  of  a  particular 
velocity  like  that  of  a  fulminating  cap.  Like  picric 
acid,  TNT  stains  the  skin  yellow  and  causes  soreness 
and  sometimes  serious  cases  of  poisoning  among  the 
employees,  mostly  girls,  in  the  munition  factories.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  girls  working  with  cordite  get  to 
using  it  as  chewing  gum ;  a  harmful  habit,  not  because 
of  any  danger  of  being  blown  up  by  it,  but  because 
nitroglycerin  is  a  heart  stimulant  and  they  do  not  need 
that. 


NITROGEN  21 

TNT  is  by  no  means  smokeless.  The  German  shells 
that  exploded  with  a  cloud  of  black  smoke  and  which 
British  soldiers  called  ** Black  Marias/'  **  coal-boxes  * ' 
or  **  Jack  Johnsons"  were  loaded  with  it.  But  it  is  an 
advantage  to  have  a  shell  show  where  it  strikes,  al- 
though a  disadvantage  to  have  it  show  where  it  starts. 

It  is  these  high  explosives  that  have  revolutionized 
warfare.  As  soon  as  the  first  German  shell  packed 
with  these  new  nitrates  burst  inside  the  Gruson  cupola 
at  Liege  and  tore  out  its  steel  and  concrete  by  the  roots 
the  world  knew  that  the  day  of  the  fixed  fortress  was 
gone.  The  armies  deserted  their  expensively  prepared 
fortifications  and  took  to  the  trenches.  The  British 
troops  in  France  found  their  weapons  futile  and  sent 
across  the  Channel  the  cry  of  '*Send  us  high  explosives 
or  we  perish!"  The  home  Government  was  slow  to 
heed  the  appeal,  but  no  progress  was  made  against  the 
Germans  until  the  Allies  had  the  means  to  blast  them 
out  of  their  entrenchments  by  shells  loaded  with  five 
hundred  pounds  of  TNT. 

All  these  explosives  are  made  from  nitric  acid  and 
this  used  to  be  made  from  nitrates  such  as  potassium 
nitrate  or  saltpeter.  But  nitrates  are  rarely  found  in 
large  quantities.  Napoleon  and  Lee  had  a  hard  time 
to  scrape  up  enough  saltpeter  from  the  compost  heaps, 
cellars  and  caves  for  their  gunpowder,  and  they  did 
not  use  as  much  nitrogen  in  a  whole  campaign  as  was 
freed  in  a  few  days'  cannonading  on  the  Somme.  Now 
there  is  one  place  in  the  world — and  so  far  as  we  know 
one  only — where  nitrates  are  to  be  found  abundantly. 
This  is  in  a  desert  on  the  western  slope  of  the  Andes 
where  ancient  guano  deposits  have  decomposed  and 


22  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

tliere  was  not  enough  rain  to  wash  away  their  salts. 
Here  is  a  bed  two  miles  wide,  two  hundred  miles  long 
and  five  feet  deep  yielding  some  twenty  to  fifty  per  cent. 
of  sodium  nitrate.  The  deposit  originally  belonged  to 
Peru,  but  Chile  fought  her  for  it  and  got  it  in  1881. 
Here  all  countries  came  to  get  their  nitrates  for  agri- 
culture and  powder  making.  Germany  was  the  largest 
customer  and  imported  750,000  tons  of  Chilean  nitrate 
in  1913,  besides  using  100,000  tons  of  other  nitrogen 
salts.  By  this  means  her  old,  wornout  fields  were  made 
to  yield  greater  harvests  than  our  fresh  land.  Ger- 
many and  England  were  like  two  duelists  buying  pow- 
der at  the  same  shop.  The  Chilean  Government, 
pocketing  an  export  duty  that  aggregated  half  a  billion 
dollars,  permitted  the  saltpeter  to  be  shoveled  impar- 
tially into  British  and  German  ships,  and  so  two  nitro- 
gen atoms,  torn  from  their  Pacific  home  and  parted, 
like  Evangeline  and  Gabriel,  by  transportation  oversea, 
may  have  found  themselves  flung  into  each  other's  arms 
from  the  mouths  of  opposing  howitzers  in  the  air  of 
Flanders.  Goethe  could  write  a  romance  on  such  a 
theme. 

Now  the  moment  war  broke  out  this  source  of  supply 
was  shut  off  to  both  parties,  for  they  blockaded  each 
other.  The  British  fleet  closed  up  the  German  ports 
while  the  German  cruisers  in  the  Pacific  took  up  a  posi- 
tion off  the  coast  of  Chile  in  order  to  intercept  the  ships 
carrying  nitrates  to  England  and  Prance.  The  Pan- 
ama Canal,  designed  to  afford  relief  in  such  an  emer- 
gency, caved  in  most  inopportunely.  The  British  sent 
a  fleet  to  the  Pacific  to  clear  the  nitrate  route,  but  it  was 
outranged  and  defeated  on  November  1,  1914.     Then  a 


NITROGEN  23 

stronger  British  fleet  was  sent  out  and  smashed  tlie 
Germans  off  the  Falkland  Islands  on  December  8.  But 
for  seven  weeks  the  nitrate  route  had  been  closed  while 
the  chemical  reactions  on  the  Marne  and  Yser  were 
decomposing  nitrogen-compounds  at  an  unheard  of 
rate. 

England  was  now  free  to  get  nitrates  for  her  muni- 
tion factories,  but  Germany  was  still  bottled  up.  She 
had  stored  up  Chilean  nitrates  in  anticipation  of  the 
war  and  as  soon  as  it  was  seen  to  be  coming  she  bought 
all  she  could  get  in  Europe.  But  this  supply  was  alto- 
gether inadequate  and  the  war  would  have  come  to  an 
end  in  the  first  winter  if  German  chemists  had  not 
provided  for  such  a  contingency  in  advance  by  work- 
ing out  methods  of  getting  nitrogen  from  the  air.  Long 
ago  it  was  said  that  the  British  ruled  the  sea  and  the 
French  the  land  so  that  left  nothing  to  the  German  but 
the  air.  The  Germans  seem  to  have  taken  this  jibe 
seriously  and  to  have  set  themselves  to  make  the  most 
of  the  aerial  realm  in  order  to  challenge  the  British  and 
French  in  the  fields  they  had  appropriated.  They  had 
succeeded  so  far  that  the  Kaiser  when  he  declared  war 
might  well  have  considered  himself  the  Prince  of  the 
Power  of  the  Air.  He  had  a  fleet  of  Zeppelins  and  he 
had  means  for  the  fixation  of  nitrogen  such  as  no  other 
nation  possessed.  The  Zeppelins  burst  like  wind  bags, 
but  the  nitrogen  plants  worked  and  made  Germany  in- 
dependent of  Chile  not  only  during  the  war,  but  in  the 
time  of  peace. 

Germany  during  the  war  used  200,000  tons  of  nitric 
acid  a  year  in  explosives,  yet  her  supply  of  nitrogen 
is  exhaustless. 


24 


CKEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 


9oacoc 


^   ^ 


D 


5  t: 


emmnritatng 


fturnan      jhoxyi 


hfieeB  PBOcaa 


\l\\\\\\\\%\ 


World  production  and  consumption  of  fixed  inorganic  nitrogen  expressed 
in  tons  nitrogen 

From  The  Journal  of  Industrial  and  Engineering  Chemistry,  March,  1919. 


Nitrogen  is  free  as  air.  That  is  the  trouble ;  it  is  too 
free.  It  is  fixed  nitrogen  that  we  want  and  that  we  are 
willing  to  pay  for ;  nitrogen  in  combination  with  some 
other  elements  in  the  form  of  food  or  fertilizer  so  we 
can  make  use  of  it  as  we  set  it  free.  Fixed  nitrogen 
in  its  cheapest  form,  Chile  saltpeter,  rose  to  $250  dur- 
ing the  war.  Free  nitrogen  costs  nothing  and  is  good 
for  nothing.  If  a  land-owner  has  a  right  to  an  expand- 
ing pyramid  of  air  above  him  to  the  limits  of  the  atmos- 
phere— as,  I  believe,  the  courts  have  decided  in  the 
eaves-dropping  cases — then  for  every  square  foot  of 


NITROGEN  25 

his  ground  he  owns  as  much  nitrogen  as  he  could  buy 
for  $2500.  The  air  is  four-fifths  free  nitrogen  and  if 
we  could  absorb  it  in  our  lungs  as  we  do  the  oxygen 
of  the  other  fifth  a  few  minutes  breathing  would  give 
us  a  full  meal.  But  we  let  this  free  nitrogen  all  out 
again  through  our  noses  and  then  go  and  pay  35  cents 
a  pound  for  steak  or  60  cents  a  dozen  for  eggs  in  order 
to  get  enough  combined  nitrogen  to  live  on.  Though 
man  is  immersed  in  an  ocean  of  nitrogen,  yet  he  cannot 
make  use  of  it.  He  is  like  Coleridge's  ** Ancient  Mari- 
ner'' with  '*  water,  water,  everywhere,  nor  any  drop  to 
drink." 

Nitrogen  is,  as  Hood  said  not  so  truly  about  gold, 
**hard  to  get  and  hard  to  hold."  The  bacteria  that 
form  the  nodules  on  the  roots  of  peas  and  beans  have 
the  power  that  man  has  not  of  utilizing  free  nitrogen. 
Instead  of  this  quiet  inconspicuous  process  man  has  to 
call  upon  the  lightning  when  he  wants  to  fix  nitrogen. 
The  air  contains  the  oxygen  and  nitrogen  which  it  is 
desired  to  combine  to  form  nitrates  but  the  atoms  are 
paired,  like  to  like.  Passing  an  electric  spark  through 
the  air  breaks  up  some  of  these  pairs  and  in  the  confu- 
sion of  the  shock  the  lonely  atoms  seize  on  their  nearest 
neighbor  and  so  may  get  partners  of  the  other  sort. 
I  have  seen  this  same  thing  happen  in  a  square  dance 
where  somebody  made  a  blunder.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
stand the  reaction  if  we  represent  the  atoms  of  oxygen 
and  nitrogen  by  the  initials  of  their  names  in  this 
fashion : 

NN    H-     00  ->-  NO+NO 
nitrogen    oxygen    nitric  oxide 


26  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

The  — >■  represents  Jove's  thunderbolt,  a  stroke  of 
artificial  lightning.  We  see  on  the  left  the  molecules 
of  oxygen  and  nitrogen,  before  taking  the  electric  treat- 
ment, as  separate  elemental  pairs,  and  then  to  the  right 
of  the  arrow  we  find  them  as  compound  molecules  of 
nitric  oxide.  This  takes  up  another  atom  of  oxygen 
from  the  air  and  becomes  NOO,  or  using  a  subscript 
figure  to  indicate  the  number  of  atoms  and  so  avoid 
repeating  the  letter,  NOg  which  is  the  familiar  nitro 
group  of  nitric  acid  (HO — NO2)  and  of  its  salts,  the 
nitrates,  and  of  its  organic  compounds,  the  high  ex- 
plosives. The  NO2  is  a  brown  and  evil-smelling  gas 
which  when  dissolved  in  water  (HOH)  and  further 
oxidized  is  completely  converted  into  nitric  acid. 

The  apparatus  which  effects  this  transformation  is 
essentially  a  gigantic  arc  light  in  a  chimney  through 
which  a  current  of  hot  air  is  blown.  The  more  thor- 
oughly the  air  comes  under  the  action  of  the  electric  arc 
the  more  molecules  of  nitrogen  and  oxygen  will  be 
broken  up  and  rearranged,  but  on  the  other  hand  if  the 
mixture  of  gases  remains  in  the  path  of  the  discharge 
the  NO  molecules  are  also  broken  up  and  go  back  into 
their  original  form  of  NN  and  00.  So  the  object  is  to 
spread  out  the  electric  arc  as  widely  as  possible  and 
then  run  the  air  through  it  rapidly.  In  the  Schonherr 
process  the  electric  arc  is  a  spiral  flame  twenty-three 
feet  long  through  which  the  air  streams  with  a  vortex 
motion.  In  the  Birkeland-Eyde  furnace  there  is  a 
series  of  semi-circular  arcs  spread  out  by  the  repellent 
force  of  a  powerful  electric  magnet  in  a  flaming  disc 
seven  feet  in  diameter  with  a  temperature  of  6300°  P. 
In  the  Pauling  furnace  the  electrodes  between  which 


NITEOGEN  27 

the  current  strikes  are  two  cast  iron  tubes  curving  up- 
ward and  outward  like  the  horns  of  a  Texas  steer  and 
cooled  by  a  stream  of  water  passing  through  them. 
These  electric  furnaces  produce  two  or  three  ounces  of 
nitric  acid  for  each  kilowatt-hour  of  current  consumed. 
Whether  they  can  compete  with  the  natural  nitrates 
and  the  products  of  other  processes  depends  upon  how 
cheaply  they  can  get  their  electricity.  Before  the  war 
there  were  several  large  installations  in  Norway  and 
elsewhere  where  abundant  water  power  was  available 
and  now  the  Norwegians  are  using  half  a  million  horse 
power  continuously  in  the  fixation  of  nitrogen  and  the 
rest  of  the  world  as  much  again.  The  Germans  had 
invested  largely  in  these  foreign  oxidation  plants,  but 
shortly  before  the  war  they  had  sold  out  and  turned 
their  attention  to  other  processes  not  requiring  so  much 
electrical  energy,  for  their  country  is  poorly  provided 
with  water  power.  The  Haber  process,  that  they  made 
most  of,  is  based  upon  as  simple  a  reaction  as  that  we 
have  been  considering,  for  it  consists  in  uniting  two 
elemental  gases  to  make  a  compound,  but  the  elements 
in  this  case  are  not  nitrogen  and  oxygen,  but  nitrogen 
and  hydrogen.  This  gives  ammonia  instead  of  nitric 
acid,  but  ammonia  is  useful  for  its  own  purposes  and  it 
can  be  converted  into  nitric  acid  if  this  is  desired.  The 
reaction  is : 

NN-|-HH  +  HH-fHH->  NHHH  +  NHHH 
nitrogen  hydrogen  ammonia 

The  animals  go  in  two  by  two,  but  they  come  out  four 
by  four.  Four  molecules  of  the  mixed  elements  are 
turned  into  two  molecules  and  so  the  gas  shrinks  to  half 


28  CREATIVE  CHEMISTET 

its  volume.  At  the  same  time  it  acquires  an  odor — 
familiar  to  us  when  we  are  curing  a  cold — that  neither 
of  the  original  gases  had.  The  agent  that  effects  the 
transformation  in  this  case  is  not  the  electric  spark — 
for  this  would  tend  to  work  the  reaction  backwards— 
but  uranium,  a  rare  metal,  which  has  the  peculiar  prop- 
erty of  helping  along  a  reaction  while  seeming  to  take 
no  part  in  it.  Such  a  substance  is  called  a  catalyst. 
The  action  of  a  catalyst  is  rather  mysterious  and  when- 
ever we  have  a  mystery  we  need  an  analogy.  We  may, 
then,  compare  the  catalyst  to  what  is  known  as  *  *  a  good 
mixer  ^'  in  society.  You  know  the  sort  of  man  I  mean. 
He  may  not  be  brilliant  or  especially  talkative,  but 
somehow  there  is  always  ** something  doing''  at  a  pic- 
nic or  house-party  when  he  is  along.  The  tactful  host- 
ess, the  salon  leader,  is  a  social  catalyst.  The  trouble 
with  catalysts,  either  human  or  metallic,  is  that  they 
are  rare  and  that  sometimes  they  get  sulky  and  won't 
work  if  the  ingredients  they  are  supposed  to  mix  are 
unsuitable. 

But  the  uranium,  osmium,  platinum  or  whatever 
metal  is  used  as  a  catalyzing  agent  is  expensive  and  al- 
though it  is  not  used  up  it  is  easily  ** poisoned,"  as  the 
chemists  say,  by  impurities  in  the  gases.  The  nitrogen 
and  the  hydrogen  for  the  Haber  process  must  then  be 
prepared  and  purified  before  trying  to  combine  them 
into  ammonia.  The  nitrogen  is  obtained  by  liquefying 
air  by  cold  and  pressure  and  then  boiling  off  the  nitro- 
gen at  -194°  C.  The  oxygen  left  is  useful  for  other 
purposes.  The  hydrogen  needed  is  extracted  by  a  sim- 
ilar process  of  fractional  distillation  from  '*  water- 
gas,"  the  blue-flame  burning  gas  used  for  heating. 


NITEOGEN  29 

Then  the  nitrogen  and  hydrogen,  mixed  in  the  propor- 
tion of  one  to  three,  as  shown  in  the  reaction  given 
above,  are  compressed  to  two  hundred  atmospheres, 
heated  to  1300°  F.  and  passed  over  the  finely  divided 
uranium.  The  stream  of  gas  that  comes  out  contains 
about  four  per  cent,  of  ammonia,  which  is  condensed  to 
a  liquid  by  cooling  and  the  uncombined  hydrogen  and 
nitrogen  passed  again  through  the  apparatus. 

The  ammonia  can  be  employed  in  refrigeration  and 
other  ways  but  if  it  is  desired  to  get  the  nitrogen  into 
the  form  of  nitric  acid  it  has  to  be  oxidized  by  the  so- 
called  Ostwald  process.     This  is  the  reaction: 

NH3     -h     40    ->    HNO3     +     HjO 
ammonia    oxygen    nitric  acid       water 

The  catalyst  used  to  effect  this  combination  is  the 
metal  platinum  in  the  form  of  fine  wire  gauze,  since  the 
action  takes  place  only  on  the  surface.  The  ammonia 
gas  is  mixed  with  air  which  supplies  the  oxygen  and 
the  heated  mixture  run  through  the  platinum  gauze  at 
the  rate  of  several  yards  a  second.  Although  the  gases 
come  in  contact  with  the  platinum  only  a  five-hundredth 
part  of  a  second  yet  eighty-five  per  cent,  is  converted 
into  nitric  acid. 

The  Haber  process  for  the  making  of  ammonia  by 
direct  synthesis  from  its  constituent  elements  and  the 
supplemental  Ostwald  process  for  the  conversion  of 
the  ammonia  into  nitric  acid  were  the  salvation  of  Ger- 
many. As  soon  as  the  Germans  saw  that  their  dash 
toward  Paris  had  been  stopped  at  the  Marne  they  knew 
that  they  were  in  for  a  long  war  and  at  once  made  plans 
for  a  supply  of  fiLxed  nitrogen.     The  chief  German  dye 


30  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

factories,  the  Badische  Anilin  and  Soda-Fabrik, 
promptly  put  $100,000,000  into  enlarging  its  plant  and 
raised  its  production  of  ammonium  sulfate  from  30,000 
to  300,000  tons.  One  German  electrical  firm  with  aid 
from  the  city  of  Berlin  contracted  to  provide  66,000,000 
pounds  of  fiixed  nitrogen  a  year  at  a  cost  of  three  cents 
a  pound  for  the  next  twenty-five  years.  The  750,000 
tons  of  Chilean  nitrate  imported  annually  by  Germany 
contained  about  116,000  tons  of  the  essential  element 
nitrogen.  The  fourteen  large  plants  erected  during 
the  war  can  fix  in  the  form  of  nitrates  500,000  tons  of 
nitrogen  a  year,  which  is  more  than  twice  the  amount 
needed  for  internal  consumption.  So  Germany  is  now 
not  only  independent  of  the  outside  world  but  will  have 
a  surplus  of  nitrogen  products  which  could  be  sold  even 
in  America  at  about  half  what  the  farmer  has  been 
paying  for  South  American  saltpeter. 

Besides  the  Haber  or  direct  process  there  are  other 
methods  of  making  ammonia  which  are,  at  least  outside 
of  Germany,  of  more  importance.  Most  prominent  of 
these  is  the  cyanamid  process.  This  requires  electri- 
cal power  since  it  starts  with  a  product  of  the  electrical 
furnace,  calcium  carbide,  familiar  to  us  all  as  a  source 
of  acetylene  gas. 

If  a  stream  of  nitrogen  is  passed  over  hot  calcium 
carbide  it  is  taken  up  by  the  carbide  according  to  the 
following  equation : 

CaCa        -h        N,    ->-        CaCNj        -f-        C 
calcium  carbide    nitrogen     calcium  cyanamid    carbon 

Calcium  cyanamid  was  discovered  in  1895  by  Caro 
and  Franke  when  they  were  trying  to  work  out  a  new 


NITROGEN  31 

process  for  making  cyanide  to  use  in  extracting  gold. 
It  looks  like  stone  and,  under  the  name  of  lime-nitrogen, 
or  Kalkstickstoff,  or  nitrolim,  is  sold  as  a  fertilizer. 
If  it  is  desired  to  get  ammonia,  it  is  treated  with  super- 
heated steam.  The  reaction  produces  heat  and  pres- 
sure, so  it  is  necessary  to  carry  it  on  in  stout  auto- 
claves or  enclosed  kettles.  The  cyanamid  is  completely 
and  quickly  converted  into  pure  ammonia  and  calcium 
carbonate,  which  is  the  same  as  the  limestone  from 
which  carbide  was  made.     The  reaction  is : 

CaCJT,       +        3H2O    ->-        CaCOa      -\-       2NH, 
calcium  cyanamid      water      calcium  carbonate    ammonia 

Another  electrical  furnace  method,  the  Serpek  proc- 
ess, uses  aluminum  instead  of  calcium  for  the  fixation 
of  nitrogen.  Bauxite,  or  impure  aluminum  oxide,  the 
ordinary  mineral  used  in  the  manufacture  of  metallic 
aluminum,  is  mixed  with  coal  and  heated  in  a  revolving 
electrical  furnace  through  which  nitrogen  is  passing. 
The  equation  is : 

AI2O3        +        3C        +        N,        ->         2A1N        +        3C0 
aluminiun  oxide    carbon  nitrogen      aluminum  nitride  carbon 

monoxide 

Then  the  aluminum  nitride  is  treated  with  steam 
under  pressure,  which  produces  ammonia  and  gives 
back  the  original  aluminum  oxide,  but  in  a  purer  form 
than  the  mineral  from  which  was  made 

2A1N      +    3H2O      -^      2NH3      4-      AlA 

aluminum  nitride  water  ammonia      aluminum  oxide 

The  Serpek  process  is  employed  to  some  extent  in 
France  in  connection  with  the  aluminum  industry. 
These  are  the  principal  processes  for  the  fixation  of 


32  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

nitrogen  now  in  use,  but  they  by  no  means  exhaust  the 
possibilities.  For  instance,  Professor  John  C.  Bucher, 
of  Brown  University,  created  a  sensation  in  1917  by 
announcing  a  new  process  which  he  had  worked  out 
with  admirable  completeness  and  which  has  some  very 
attractive  features.  It  needs  no  electric  power  or  high 
pressure  retorts  or  liquid  air  apparatus.  He  simply 
fills  a  twenty-foot  tube  with  briquets  made  out  of  soda 
ash,  iron  and  coke  and  passes  producer  gas  through  the 
heated  tube.  Producer  gas  contains  nitrogen  since  it 
is  made  by  passing  air  over  hot  coal.     The  reaction  is : 


2Na,C03 

+ 

40         +         ^3         = 

2NaCN 

+         3C0 

sodium 

carbon           nitrogen 

sodium 

carbon 

carbonate 

cyanide 

monoxide 

The  iron  here  acts  as  the  catalyst  and  converts  two 
harmless  substances,  sodium  carbonate,  which  is  com- 
mon washing  soda,  and  carbon,  into  two  of  the  most 
deadly  compounds  known  to  man,  cyanide  and  carbon 
monoxide,  which  is  what  kills  you  when  you  blow  out 
the  gas.  Sodium  cyanide  is  a  salt  of  hydrocyanic  acid, 
which  for  some  curious  reason  is  called  **Prus sic  acid.  *^ 
It  is  so  violent  a  poison  that,  as  the  freshman  said  in  a 
chemistry  recitation,  **a  single  drop  of  it  placed  on  the 
tongue  of  a  dog  will  kill  a  man. ' ' 

But  sodium  cyanide  is  not  only  useful  in  itself,  for 
the  extraction  of  gold  and  cleaning  of  silver,  but  can 
be  converted  into  ammonia,  and  a  variety  of  other  com- 
pounds such  as  urea  and  oxamid,  which  are  good  fer- 
tilizers; sodium  ferrocyanide,  that  makes  Prussian 
blue ;  and  oxalic  acid  used  in  dyeing.  Professor  Bucher 
claimed  that  his  furnace  could  be  set  up  in  a  day  at  a 
cost  of  less  than  $100  and  could  turn  out  150  pounds  of 


w 


"-^A 


^ 


J    c 

<     o 

§1 


Courtesy  of  E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Nemours  Co, 

BURNING  AIK  IN  A  BIRKELAND-ETDE  FURNACE  AT  THE  DU  PONT  PLANT 

An  electric  arc  consuming  about  4000  horse-power  of  energy  is  passing  between  the 
X7-shaped  electrodes,  which  are  made  of  copper  tube  cooled  by  an  internal  current  of 
water.  On  the  sides  of  the  chamber  are  seen  the  openings  through  which  the  air  passes 
impinging  directly  on  both  sides  of  the  surface  of  the  disk  of  flame.  This  flame  is 
approximately  seven  feet  in  diameter  and  appears  to  be  continuous  although  an  alter- 
nating current  of  fifty  cycles  a  second  is  used.  The  electric  arc  is  spread  into  this  disk 
flame  by  the  repellent  power  of  an  electro-magnet  the  pointed  pole  of  which  is  seen 
at  bottom  of  the  picture.  Under  this  intense  heat  a  part  of  the  nitrogen  and  oxygen 
of  the  air  combine  to  form  oxides  of  nitrogen  which  when  dissolved  in  water  form  the 
nitric  acid  used  in  explosives. 


Courtesy  of^E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Nemours  Co. 

A  BATTERY  OP  BIRKELAND-EYDE  FURNACES  FOR  THE  FIXATION  OF  NITROGEN 
AT  THE   DU  PONT   PLANT 


NITEOGEN  33 

sodium  cyanide  in  twenty-four  hours.  This  process 
was  placed  freely  at  the  disposal  of  the  United  States 
Government  for  the  war  and  a  10-ton  plant  was  built  at 
Saltville,  Va.,  by  the  Ordnance  Department.  But  the 
armistice  put  a  stop  to  its  operations  and  left  the  future 
of  the  process  undetermined. 

We  might  have  expected  that  the  fixation  of  nitrogen 
by  passing  an  electrical  spark  through  hot  air  would 
have  been  an  American  invention,  since  it  was  Franklin 
who  snatched  the  lightning  from  the  heavens  as  well  as 
the  scepter  from  the  tyrant  and  since  our  output  of  hot 
air  is  unequaled  by  any  other  nation.  But  little  atten- 
tion was  paid  to  the  nitrogen  problem  until  1916  when 
it  became  evident  that  we  should  soon  be  drawn  into  a 
war  *Svith  a  first  class  power.'*  On  June  3, 1916,  Con- 
gress placed  $20,000,000  at  the  disposal  of  the  president 
for  investigation  of  **the  best,  cheapest  and  most  avail- 
able means  for  the  production  of  nitrate  and  other 
products  for  munitions  of  war  and  useful  in  the  manu- 
facture of  fertilizers  and  other  useful  products  by 
water  power  or  any  other  power.**  But  by  the  time 
war  was  declared  on  April  6, 1917,  no  definite  program 
had  been  approved  and  by  the  time  the  armistice  was 
signed  on  November  11,  1918,  no  plants  were  in  active 
operation.  But  five  plants  had  been  started  and  two 
of  them  were  nearly  ready  to  begin  work  when  they 
were  closed  by  the  ending  of  the  war.  United  States 
Nitrate  Plant  No.  1  was  located  at  Sheffield,  Alabama, 
and  was  designed  for  the  production  of  ammonia  by 
^* direct  action*'  from  nitrogen  and  hydrogen  accord- 
ing to  the  plans  of  the  American  Chemical  Company. 
Its  capacity  was  calculated  at  60,000  pounds  of  anhy- 


34  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

drous  ammonia  a  day,  half  of  which  was  to  be  oxidized 
to  nitric  acid.  Plant  No.  2  was  erected  at  Muscle 
Shoals,  Alabama,  to  use  the  process  of  the  American 
Cyanamid  Company.  This  was  contracted  to  produce 
110,000  tons  of  ammonium  nitrate  a  year  and  later  two 
other  cyanamid  plants  of  half  that  capacity  were 
started  at  Toledo  and  Ancor,  Ohio. 

At  Muscle  Shoals  a  mushroom  city  of  20,000  sprang 
up  on  an  Alabama  cotton  field  in  six  months.  The  raw 
material,  air,  was  as  abundant  there  as  anywhere  and 
the  power,  water,  could  be  obtained  from  the  Govern- 
ment hydro-electric  plant  on  the  Tennessee  River,  but 
this  was  not  available  during  the  war,  so  steam  was  em- 
ployed instead.  The  heat  of  the  coal  was  used  to  cool 
the  air  down  to  the  liquefying  point.  The  principle  of 
this  process  is  simple.  Everybody  knows  that  heat 
expands  and  cold  contracts,  but  not  everybody  has  real- 
ized the  converse  of  this  rule,  that  expansion  cools  and 
compression  heats.  If  air  is  forced  into  smaller  space, 
as  in  a  tire  pump,  it  heats  up  and  if  allowed  to  expand 
to  ordinary  pressure  it  cools  off  again.  But  if  the  air 
while  compressed  is  cooled  and  then  allowed  to  expand 
it  must  get  still  colder  and  the  process  can  go  on  till  it 
becomes  cold  enough  to  congeal.  That  is,  by  expand- 
ing a  great  deal  of  air,  a  little  of  it  can  be  reduced  to 
the  liquefying  point.  At  Muscle  Shoals  the  plant  for 
liquefying  air,  in  order  to  get  the  nitrogen  out  of  it, 
consisted  of  two  dozen  towers  each  capable  of  produc- 
ing 1765  cubic  feet  of  pure  nitrogen  per  hour.  The  air 
was  drawn  in  through  two  pipes,  a  yard  across,  and 
passed  through  scrubbing  towers  to  remove  impurities. 
The  air  was  then  compressed  to  600  pounds  per  square 


NITROGEN  35 

inch.  Nine  tenths  of  the  air  was  permitted  to  expand 
to  50  pounds  and  this  expansion  cooled  down  the  other 
tenth,  still  under  high  pressure,  to  the  liquefying  point. 
Rectifying  towers  24  feet  high  were  stacked  with  trays 
of  liquid  air  from  which  the  nitrogen  was  continually 
bubbling  off  since  its  boiling  point  is  twelve  degrees 
centigrade  lower  than  that  of  oxygen.  Pure  nitrogen 
gas  collected  at  the  top  of  the  tower  and  the  residual 
liquid  air,  now  about  half  oxygen,  was  allowed  to  escape 
at  the  bottom. 

The  nitrogen  was  then  run  through  pipes  into  the 
lime-nitrogen  ovens.  There  were  1536  of  these  about 
four  feet  square  and  each  holding  1600  pounds  of  pul- 
verized calcium  carbide.  This  is  at  first  heated  by  an 
electrical  current  to  start  the  reaction  which  afterwards 
produces  enough  heat  to  keep  it  going.  As  the  stream 
of  nitrogen  gas  passes  over  the  finely  divided  carbide  it 
is  absorbed  to  form  calcium  cyanamid  as  described  on 
a  previous  page.  This  product  is  cooled,  powdered 
and  wet  to  destroy  any  quicklime  or  carbide  left  un- 
changed. Then  it  is  charged  into  autoclaves  and  steam 
at  high  temperature  and  pressure  is  admitted.  The 
steam  acting  on  the  cyanamid  sets  free  ammonia  gas 
which  is  carried  to  towers  down  which  cold  water  is 
sprayed,  giving  the  ammonia  water,  familiar  to  the 
kitchen  and  the  bathroom. 

But  since  nitric  acid  rather  than  ammonia  was 
needed  for  munitions,  the  oxygen  of  the  air  had  to  be 
called  into  play.  This  process,  as  already  explained, 
is  carried  on  by  aid  of  a  catalyzer,  in  this  case  platinum 
wire.  At  Muscle  Shoals  there  were  696  of  these  cata- 
lyzer boxes.    The  ammonia  gas,  mixed  with  air  to  pro- 


36  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

vide  the  necessary  oxygen,  was  admitted  at  the  top 
and  passed  down  through  a  sheet  of  platinum  gauze 
of  80  mesh  to  the  inch,  heated  to  incandescence  by  elec 
tricity.  In  contact  with  this  the  ammonia  is  converted 
into  gaseous  oxides  of  nitrogen  (the  familiar  red  fumes 
of  the  laboratory)  which,  carried  off  in  pipes,  cooled  and 
dissolved  in  water,  form  nitric  acid. 

But  since  none  of  the  national  plants  could  be  got 
into  action  during  the  war,  the  United  States  was  com- 
pelled to  draw  upon  South  America  for  its  supply. 
The  imports  of  Chilean  saltpeter  rose  from  half  a 
million  tons  in  1914  to  a  million  and  a  half  in  1917. 
After  peace  was  made  the  Department  of  War  turned 
over  to  the  Department  of  Agriculture  its  surplus  of 
saltpeter,  150,000  tons,  and  it  was  sold  to  American 
farmers  at  cost,  $81  a  ton. 

For  nitrogen  plays  a  double  role  in  human  economy. 
It  appears  like  Brahma  in  two  aspects,  Vishnu  the  Pre- 
server and  Siva  the  Destroyer.  Here  I  have  been  con- 
sidering nitrogen  in  its  maleficent  aspect,  its  use  in 
war.  We  now  turn  to  its  beneficent  aspect,  its  use  in 
peace. 


ni 

FEEDING  THE  SOIL 

The  Great  War  not  only  starved  people :  it  starved 
the  land.  Enough  nitrogen  was  thrown  away  in  some 
indecisive  battle  on  the  Aisne  to  save  India  from  a 
famine.  The  population  of  Europe  as  a  whole  has  not 
been  lessened  by  the  war,  but  the  soil  has  been  robbed 
of  its  power  to  support  the  population.  A  plant  re- 
quires certain  chemical  elements  for  its  growth  and 
all  of  these  must  be  within  reach  of  its  rootlets,  for  it 
will  accept  no  substitutes.  A  wheat  stalk  in  France 
before  the  war  had  placed  at  its  feet  nitrates  from 
Chile,  phosphates  from  Florida  and  potash  from  Ger- 

'  many.    All  these  were  shut  off  by  the  firing  line  and 

I  the  shortage  of  shipping. 

Out  of  the  eighty  elements  only  thirteen  are  neces- 

'  sary  for  crops.  Four  of  these  are  gases;  hydrogen, 
oxygen,  nitrogen  and  chlorine.     Five  are  metals:  po- 

I  tassium,  magnesium,  calcium,  iron  and  sodium.  Four 
are  non-metallic  solids :  carbon,  sulfur,  phosphorus  and 

;  silicon.     Three  of  these,  hydrogen,  oxygen  and  carbon, 

'  making  up  the  bulk  of  the  plant,  are  obtainable  ad  libi- 

\  turn  from  the  air  and  water.  The  other  ten  in  the  form 
of  salts  are  dissolved  in  the  water  that  is  sucked  up 

I  from  the  soil.  The  quantity  needed  by  the  plant  is  so 
small  and  the  quantity  contained  in  the  soil  is  so  great 
that  ordinarily  we  need  not  bother  about  the  supply 

37 


38  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

except  in  case  of  three  of  them.  They  are  nitrogen, 
potassium  and  phosphorus.  These  would  be  useless  or 
fatal  to  plant  life  in  the  elemental  form,  but  fixed  in 
neutral  salt  they  are  essential  plant  foods.  A  ton  of 
wheat  takes  away  from  the  soil  about  47  pounds  of 
nitrogen,  18  pounds  of  phosphoric  acid  and  12  pounds 
of  potash.  If  then  the  farmer  does  not  restore  this 
much  to  his  field  every  year  he  is  drawing  upon  his 
capital  and  this  must  lead  to  bankruptcy  in  the  long 
run. 

So  much  is  easy  to  see,  but  actually  the  question  is 
extremely  complicated.  When  the  German  chemist, 
Justus  von  Liebig,  pointed  out  in  1840  the  possibility 
of  maintaining  soil  fertility  by  the  application  of  chemi- 
cals it  seemed  at  first  as  though  the  question  were  prac- 
tically solved.  Chemists  assumed  that  all  they  had  to 
do  was  to  analyze  the  soil  and  analyze  the  crop  and 
from  this  figure  out,  as  easily  as  balancing  a  bank  book, 
just  how  much  of  each  ingredient  would  have  to  be  re- 
stored to  the  soil  every  year.  But  somehow  it  did  not 
work  out  that  way  and  the  practical  agriculturist,  find- 
ing that  the  formulas  did  not  fit  his  farm,  sneered  at  the 
professors  and  whenever  they  cited  Liebig  to  him  he 
irreverently  transposed  the  syllables  of  the  name.  The 
chemist  when  he  went  deeper  into  the  subject  saw  that 
he  had  to  deal  with  the  colloids,  damp,  unpleasant, 
gummy  bodies  that  he  had  hitherto  fought  shy  of  be- 
cause they  would  not  crystallize  or  filter.  So  the  chem- 
ist called  to  his  aid  the  physicist  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  biologist  on  the  other  and  then  they  both  had  their 
hands  full.  The  physicist  found  that  he  had  to  deal 
with  a  polyvariant  system  of  solids,  liquids  and  gases 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  39 

mntually  miscible  in  phases  too  numerous  to  be  han- 
dled by  Gibbs's  Kule.  The  biologist  found  that  he  had 
to  deal  with  the  invisible  flora  and  fauna  of  a  new 
world. 

Plants  obey  the  injunction  of  Tennyson  and  rise  on 
the  stepping  stones  of  their  dead  selves  to  higher 
things.  Each  successive  generation  lives  on  what  is 
left  of  the  last  in  the  soil  plus  what  it  adds  from  the 
air  and  sunshine.  As  soon  as  a  leaf  or  tree  trunk  falls 
to  the  ground  it  is  taken  in  charge  by  a  wrecking  crew 
composed  of  a  myriad  of  microscopic  organisms  who 
proceed  to  break  it  up  into  its  component  parts  so  these 
can  be  used  for  building  a  new  edifice.  The  process  is 
called  ** rotting"  and  the  product,  the  black,  gummy 
stuff  of  a  fertile  soil,  is  called  ** humus."  The  plants, 
that  is,  the  higher  plants,  are  not  able  to  live  on  their 
own  proteids  as  the  animals  are.  But  there  are  lower 
plants,  certain  kinds  of  bacteria,  that  can  break  up  the 
big  complicated  proteid  molecules  into  their  component 
parts  and  reduce  the  nitrogen  in  them  to  ammonia  or 
ammonia-like  compounds.  Having  done  this  they  stop 
and  turn  over  the  job  to  another  set  of  bacteria  to  be 
carried  through  the  next  step.  For  you  must  know 
that  soil  society  is  as  complex  and  specialized  as  that 
above  ground  and  the  tiniest  bacterium  would  die 
rather  than  violate  the  union  rules.  The  second  set  of 
bacteria  change  the  ammonia  over  to  nitrites  and  then 
a  third  set,  the  Amalgamated  Union  of  Nitrate  Work- 
ers, steps  in  and  completes  the  process  of  oxidation 
with  an  efficiency  that  Ostwald  might  envy,  for  ninety- 
six  per  cent,  of  the  ammonia  of  the  soil  is  converted 
into  nitrates.    But  if  the  conditions  are  not  just  right, 


40  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

if  the  food  is  insufficient  or  unwholesome  or  if  the  air 
that  circulates  through  the  soil  is  contaminated  with 
poison  gases,  the  bacteria  go  on  a  strike.  The  farmer, 
not  seeing  the  thing  from  the  standpoint  of  the  bac- 
teria, says  the  soil  is  **sick''  and  he  proceeds  to  doctor 
it  according  to  his  own  notion  of  what  ails  it.  First 
perhaps  he  tries  running  in  strike  breakers.  He  goes 
to  one  of  the  firms  that  makes  a  business  of  supplying 
nitrogen-fixing  bacteria  from  the  scabs  or  nodules  of 
the  clover  roots  and  scatters  these  colonies  over  the 
field.  But  if  the  living  conditions  remain  bad  the  new- 
comers will  soon  quit  work  too  and  the  farmer  loses  his 
money.  If  he  is  wise,  then,  he  will  remedy  the  condi- 
tions, putting  a  better  ventilation  system  in  his  soil 
perhaps  or  neutralizing  the  sourness  by  means  of  lime 
or  killing  off  the  ameboid  banditti  that  prey  upon  the 
peaceful  bacteria  engaged  in  the  nitrogen  industry.  It 
is  not  an  easy  job  that  the  farmer  has  in  keeping  bil- 
lions of  billions  of  subterranean  servants  contented  and 
working  together,  but  if  he  does  not  succeed  at  this  he 
wastes  his  seed  and  labor. 

The  layman  regards  the  soil  as  a  platform  or  anchor- 
ing place  on  which  to  set  plants.  He  measures  its 
value  by  its  superficial  area  without  considering  its 
contents,  which  is  as  absurd  as  to  estimate  a  man's 
wealth  by  the  size  of  his  safe.  The  difference  in  point 
of  view  is  well  illustrated  by  the  old  story  of  the  city 
chap  who  was  showing  his  farmer  uncle  the  sights  of 
New  York.  When  he  took  him  to  Central  Park  he  tried 
to  astonish  him  by  saying  **This  land  is  worth  $500,000 
an  acre.''  The  old  farmer  dug  his  toe  into  the  ground, 
kicked  out  a  clod,  broke  it  open,  looked  at  it,  spit  on  it 


r 


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Photo  by  International  Film  Service 

A  BARROW  FULL  OF  POTASH  SALTS  EXTRACTED   FROM  SIX  TONS  OF  GREEN 
KELP   BY   THE    GOVERNMENT  CHEMISTS 


I 

nature's    SILENT    METHOD    OF    Xrj'Uui.l.X     MXATIuX 

The  nodules  on  the  vetch  roots  contain  colonies  of  bacteria  which  have  the  power  ot 
taking  the  free  nitrogen  out  of  the  air  and  putting  it  in  compounds  suitable  for  plant 
food 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  41 

and  squeezed  it  in  his  hand  and  then  said,  * 'Don't  you 
believe  it;  'tain't  worth  ten  dollars  an  acre.  Mighty 
poor  soil  I  call  it.  *'    Both  were  right. 

The  modern  agriculturist  realizes  that  the  soil  is  a 
laboratory  for  the  production  of  plant  food  and  he  ordi- 
narily takes  more  pains  to  provide  a  balanced  ration 
for  it  than  he  does  for  his  family.  Of  course  the  ne- 
cessity of  feeding  the  soil  has  been  known  ever  since 
man  began  to  settle  down  and  the  ancient  methods  of 
maintaining  its  fertility,  though  discovered  acciden- 
tally and  followed  blindly,  were  sound  and  efficacious. 
Virgil,  who  like  Liberty  Hyde  Bailey  was  fond  of  pub- 
lishing agricultural  bulletins  in  poetry,  wrote  two  thou- 
sand years  ago : 

But  sweet  vicissitudes  of  rest  and  toil 

Make  easy  labor  and  renew  the  soil 

Yet  sprinkle  sordid  ashes  all  around 

And  load  with  fatt'ning  dung  thy  fallow  soil. 

The  ashes  supplied  the  potash  and  the  dung  the  ni- 
trate and  phosphate.  Long  before  the  discovery  of 
the  nitrogen-fixing  bacteria,  the  custom  prevailed  of 
sowing  pea-like  plants  every  third  year  and  then  plow- 
ing them  under  to  enrich  the  soil.  But  such  local  sup- 
plies were  always  inadequate  and  as  soon  as  deposits  of 
fertilizers  were  discovered  anywhere  in  the  world  they 
were  drawn  upon.  The  richest  of  these  was  the  Chin- 
cha  Islands  off  the  coast  of  Peru,  where  millions  of 
penguins  and  pelicans  had  lived  in  a  most  untidy  man- 
ner for  untold  centuries.  The  guano  composed  of  the 
excrement  of  the  birds  mixed  with  the  remains  of  dead 
birds  and  the  fishes  they  fed  upon  was  piled  up  to  a 


42  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

depth  of  120  feet.  From  this  Isle  of  Penguins — ^which 
is  not  that  described  by  Anatole  France — a  billion  dol- 
lars'  worth  of  guano  was  taken  and  the  deposit  was 
soon  exhausted. 

Then  the  attention  of  the  world  was  directed  to  the 
mainland  of  Peru  and  Chile,  where  similar  guano  de- 
posits had  been  accumulated  and,  not  being  washed 
away  on  account  of  the  lack  of  rain,  had  been  deposited 
as  sodium  nitrate,  or  ** saltpeter.''  These  beds  were 
discovered  by  a  German,  Taddeo  Haenke,  in  1809,  but 
it  was  not  until  the  last  quarter  of  the  century  that  the 
nitrates  came  into  common  use  as  a  fertilizer.  Since 
then  more  than  53,000,000  tons  have  been  taken  out  of 
these  beds  and  the  exportation  has  risen  to  a  rate  of 
2,500,000  to  3,000,000  tons  a  year.  How  much  longer 
they  will  last  is  a  matter  of  opinion  and  opinion  is 
largely  influenced  by  whether  you  have  your  money 
invested  in  Chilean  nitrate  stock  or  in  one  of  the  new 
synthetic  processes  for  making  nitrates.  The  United 
States  Department  of  Agriculture  says  the  nitrate  beds 
will  be  exhausted  in  a  few  years.  On  the  other  hand 
the  Chilean  Inspector  General  of  Nitrate  Deposits  in 
his  latest  official  report  says  that  they  will  last  for  two 
hundred  years  at  the  present  rate  and  that  then  there 
are  incalculable  areas  of  low  grade  deposits,  containing 
less  than  eleven  per  cent.,  to  be  drawn  upon. 

Anyhow,  the  South  American  beds  cannot  long  sup- 
ply the  world's  need  of  nitrates  and  we  shall  some  time 
be  starving  unless  creative  chemistry  comes  to  the  res- 
cue. In  1898  Sir  William  Crookes — the  discoverer  of 
the  *' Crookes  tubes,"  the  radiometer  and  radiant  mat- 
ter— startled  the  British  Association  for  the  Advance- 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  43 

ment  of  Science  by  declaring  that  the  world  was  Hear- 
ing the  limit  of  wheat  production  and  that  by  1931  the 
bread-eaters,  the  Caucasians,  would  have  to  turn  to 
other  grains  or  restrict  their  population  while  the  rice 
and  millet  eaters  of  Asia  would  continue  to  increase. 
Sir  William  was  laughed  at  then  as  a  sensationalist. 
He  was,  but  his  sensations  were  apt  to  prove  true  and  it 
is  already  evident  that  he  was  too  near  right  for  com- 
fort. Before  we  were  half  way  to  the  date  he  set  we 
had  two  wheatless  days  a  week,  though  that  was  be- 
cause we  persisted  in  shooting  nitrates  into  the  air. 
The  area  producing  wheat  was  by  decades :  ^ 

THE  WHEAT   FIELDS  OF  THE  WORLD 

Acres 

1881-90     192,000,000 

1890-1900     211,000,000 

1900-10     242,000,000 

Probable  limit   300,000,000 

If  300,000,000  acres  can  be  brought  under  cultivation 
for  wheat  and  the  average  yield  raised  to  twenty  bush- 
els to  the  acre,  that  will  give  enough  to  feed  a  billion 
people  if  they  eat  six  bushels  a  year  as  do  the  English. 
"Whether  this  maximum  is  correct  or  not  there  is  evi- 
dently some  limit  to  the  area  which  has  suitable  soil 
and  climate  for  growing  wheat,  so  we  are  ultimately 
thrown  back  upon  Crookes's  solution  of  the  problem; 
that  is,  we  must  increase  the  yield  per  acre  and  this 
can  only  be  done  by  the  use  of  fertilizers  and  especially 
by  the  fixation  of  atmospheric  nitrogen.     Crookes  esti- 

1 1  am  quoting  mostly  Unstead's  fisrures  from  the  Geographical  Jour- 
nnl  of  1913.  See  also  Dickson's  "The  Distribution  of  Mankind,"  in 
Smithsonian  Report,  1913. 


44  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

mated  the  average  yield  of  wheat  at  12.7  bushels  to  the 
acre,  which  is  more  than  it  is  in  the  new  lands  of  the 
United  States,  Australia  and  Russia,  but  less  than  in 
Europe,  where  the  soil  is  well  fed.  What  can  be  done 
to  increase  the  yield  may  be  seen  from  these  figures : 

GAIN   IN   THE  YIELD   OP  WHEAT   IN   BUSHELS  PER  ACRE 

1889-90  1913 

Germany     19  35 

Belgium    30  35 

France     17  20 

United  Kingdom  28  32 

United  States  12  15 

The  greatest  gain  was  made  in  Germany  and  we  see 
a  reason  for  it  in  the  fact  that  the  German  importation 
of  Chilean  saltpeter  was  55,000  tons  in  1880  and  747,000 
tons  in  1913.  In  potatoes,  too,  Germany  gets  twice  as 
big  a  crop  from  the  same  ground  as  we  do,  223  bushels 
per  acre  instead  of  our  113  bushels.  But  the  United 
States  uses  on  the  average  only  28  pounds  of  fertilizer 
per  acre,  while  Europe  uses  200. 

It  is  clear  that  we  cannot  rely  upon  Chile,  but  make 
nitrates  for  ourselves  as  Germany  had  to  in  war  time. 
In  the  first  chapter  we  considered  the  new  methods  of 
fixing  the  free  nitrogen  from  the  air.  But  the  fixation 
of  nitrogen  is  a  new  business  in  this  country  and  our 
chief  reliance  so  far  has  been  the  coke  ovens.  When 
coal  is  heated  in  retorts  or  ovens  for  making  coke  or 
gas  a  lot  of  ammonia  comes  off  with  the  other  products 
of  decomposition  and  is  caught  in  the  sulfuric  acid 
used  to  wash  the  gas  as  ammonium  sulfate.  Our 
American  coke-makers  have  been  in  the  habit  of  letting 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL 


45 


this  escape  into  the  air  and  consequently  we  have  been 
losing  some  700,000  tons  of  ammonium  salts  dvery  year, 
enough  to  keep  our  land  rich  and  give  us  all  the  explo- 
sives we  should  need.  But  now  they  are  reforming 
and  putting  in  ovens  that  save  the  by-products  such  as 


SwitxtHonei  3«78fORi 
Ihilij|606l1on» 

Rus;5ia&FinJond 

Scondinav'tQ 
to^J-Othcr  Cpunf  ne» 


Courtesy  of  Scientific  American. 

Consumption  of  potash  for  agricultural  purposes  in 
different  countries 

ammonia  and  coal  tar,  so  in  1916  we  got  from  this 
source  325,000  tons  a  year. 

Germany  had  a  natural  monopoly  of  potash  as  Chile 
had  a  natural  monopoly  of  nitrates.  The  agriculture 
of  Europe  and  America  has  been  virtually  dependent 
upon  these  two  sources  of  plant  foods.  Now  when  the 
world  was  cleft  in  twain  by  the  shock  of  August,  1914, 
the  Allied  Powers  had  the  nitrates  and  the  Central 
Powers  had  the  potash.  If  Germany  had  not  had  up 
her  sleeve  a  new  process  for  making  nitrates  she  could 
not  long  have  carried  on  a  war  and  doubtless  would  not 
have  ventured  upon  it.    But  the  outside  world  had  no 


46 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


such  substitute  for  the  German  potash  salts  and  has 
not  yet  discovered  one.  Consequently  the  price  of 
potash  in  the  United  States  jumped  from  $40  to  $400 
and  the  cost  of  food  went  up  with  it.  Even  under  the 
stimulus  of  prices  ten  times  the  normal  and  with  chem- 


"PfilCE 

19/3       f9M        f9/S        /9/6        /9/7     \ 

pejf 
Ton 
*soo 

400 
300 

loo 

100 

Hi 

1 

5 

^ 

^ 

llllllll 

lllllll  ^ 

What  happened  to  potash  when  the  war  broke  out.  This  diagram 
from  the  Journal  of  Industrial  and  Engineering  Chemistry  of  July,  1917, 
shows  how  the  supply  of  potassium  muriate  from  Germany  was  shut  off 
in  1914  and  how  its  price  rose. 


ists  searching  furnace  crannies  and  bad  lands  the 
United  States  was  able  to  scrape  up  less  than  10,000 
tons  of  potash  in  1916,  and  this  was  barely  enough  to 
satisfy  our  needs  for  two  weeks ! 

Yet  potash  compounds  are  as  cheap  as  dirt.  Pick 
up  a  handful  of  gravel  and  you  will  be  able  to  find  much 
of  it  feldspar  or  other  mineral  containing  some  ten  per 
cent,  of  potash.  Unfortunately  it  is  in  combination 
with  silica,  which  is  harder  to  break  up  than  a 
trust. 

But  ''constant  washing  wears  away  stones*'  and  the 


FEEDING  THE  SOIU  47 

potash  that  the  metallurgist  finds  too  hard  to  extract 
in  his  hottest  furnace  is  washed  out  in  the  course  of 
time  through  the  dropping  of  the  gentle  rain  from 
lieaven.  **A11  rivers  run  to  the  sea"  and  so  the  sea 
gets  salt,  all  sorts  of  salts,  principally  sodium  chloride 
(our  table  salt)  and  next  magnesium,  calcium  and  po- 
tassium chlorides  or  sulfates  in  this  order  of  abun- 
dance. But  if  we  evaporate  sea-water  down  to  dry- 
ness all  these  are  left  in  a  mix  together  and  it  is  hard 
to  sort  them  out.  Only  patient  Nature  has  time  for  it 
and  she  only  did  on  a  large  scale  in  one  place,  that  is  at 
Stassfurt,  Germany.  It  seems  that  in  the  days  when 
northwestern  Prussia  was  undetermined  whether  it 
should  be  sea  or  land  it  was  flooded  annually  by  sea- 
water.  As  this  slowly  evaporated  the  dissolved  salts 
crystallized  out  at  the  critical  points,  leaving  beds  of 
various  combinations.  Each  year  there  would  be  de- 
posited three  to  five  inches  of  salts  with  a  thin  layer  of 
calcium  sulfate  or  gypsum  on  top.  Counting  these  an- 
nual layers,  like  the  rings  on  a  stump,  we  find  that  the 
Stassfurt  beds  were  ten  thousand  years  in  the  making. 
They  were  first  worked  for  their  salt,  common  salt, 
alone,  but  in  1837  the  Prussian  Government  began  pros- 
pecting for  new  and  deeper  deposits  and  found,  not  the 
clean  rock  salt  that  they  wanted,  but  bittern,  largely 
magnesium  sulfate  or  Epsom  salt,  which  is  not  at  all 
nice  for  table  use.  This  stuff  was  first  thrown  away 
until  it  was  realized  that  it  was  much  more  valuable  for 
the  potash  it  contains  than  was  the  rock  salt  they  were 
after.  Then  the  Germans  began  to  purify  the  Stass- 
furt salts  and  market  them  throughout  the  world. 
They  contain  from  fifteen  to  twenty-five  per  cent,  of 


48  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


magnesium  chloride  miixed  with  magnesium  chloride  in 
*  *  carnallite/ ^  with  magnesium  sulfate  in  ^^minite'^  and 
sodium  chloride  in  ^  *  sylvinite. ' '  More  than  thirty 
thousand  miners  and  workmen  are  employed  in  the 
Stassfurt  works.  There  are  some  seventy  distinct 
establishments  engaged  in  the  business,  but  they  are  in 
combination.  In  fact  they  are  compelled  to  be,  for  the 
German  Government  is  as  anxious  to  promote  trusts 
as  the  American  Government  is  to  prevent  them.  Once 
the  Stassfurt  firms  had  a  falling  out  and  began  a  cut- 
throat competition.  But  the  German  Government  ob- 
jects to  its  people  cutting  each  other's  throats.  Ameri- 
can dealers  were  getting  unheard  of  bargains  when  the 
German  Government  stepped  in  and  compelled  the  com- 
peting corporations  to  recombine  under  threat  of  put- 
ting on  an  export  duty  that  would  eat  up  their  profits. 
The  advantages  of  such  business  cooperation  are  spe- 
cially shown  in  opening  up  a  new  market  for  an  un- 
known product  as  in  the  case  of  the  introduction  of 
the  Stassfurt  salts  into  American  agriculture.  The 
farmer  in  any  country  is  apt  to  be  set  in  his  ways  and 
when  it  comes  to  inducing  him  to  spend  his  hard-earned 
money  for  chemicals  that  he  never  heard  of  and  could 
not  pronounce  he — quite  rightly — has  to  be  shown. 
Well,  he  was  shown.  It  was,  if  I  remember  right,  early 
in  the  nineties  that  the  German  Kali  Syndikat  began 
operations  in  America  and  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment became  its  chief  advertising  agent.  In  every 
state  there  was  an  agricultural  experiment  station  and 
these  were  provided  liberally  with  illustrated  literature 
on  Stassfurt  salts  with  colored  wall  charts  and  sets  of 
samples  and  free  sacks  of  salts  for  field  experiments. 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  49 

The  station  men,  finding  that  they  could  rely  upon  the 
scientific  accuracy  of  the  information  supplied  by  Kali 
and  that  the  experiments  worked  out  well,  became  en- 
thusiastic advocates  of  potash  fertilizers.  The  station 
bulletins — which  Uncle  Sam  was  kind  enough  to  carry 
free  to  all  the  farmers  of  the  state — sometimes  were 
worded  so  like  the  Kali  Company  advertising  that  the 
company  might  have  raised  a  complaint  of  plagiariz- 
ing, but  they  never  did.  The  Chilean  nitrates,  which 
are  under  British  control,  were  later  introduced  by 
similar  methods  through  the  agency  of  the  state  agri- 
cultural experiment  stations. 

As  a  result  of  all  this  missionary  work,  which  cost 
the  Kali  Company  $50,000  a  year,  the  attention  of  a 
large  proportion  of  American  farmers  was  turned  to- 
ward intensive  farming  and  they  began  to  realize  the 
necessity  of  feeding  the  soil  that  was  feeding  them. 
They  grew  dependent  upon  these  two  foreign  and 
widely  separated  sources  of  supply.  In  the  year  be- 
fore the  war  the  United  States  imported  a  million  tons 
of  Stassfurt  salts,  for  which  the  farmers  paid  more 
than  $20,000,000.  Then  a  declaration  of  American  in- 
dependence— the  German  embargo  of  1915 — cut  us  off 
from  Stassfurt  and  for  five  years  we  had  to  rely  upon 
our  own  resources.  "We  have  seen  how  Germany — shut 
off  from  Chile — solved  the  nitrogen  problem  for  her 
fields  and  munition  plants.  It  was  not  so  easy  for  us — 
shut  off  from  Germany — to  solve  the  potash  problem. 

There  is  no  more  lack  of  potash  in  the  rocks  than 
there  is  of  nitrogen  in  the  air,  but  the  nitrogen  is  free 
and  has  only  to  be  caught  and  combined,  while  the  pot- 
ash is  shut  up  in  a  granite  prison  from  which  it  is  hard 


50  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

to  get  it  free.  It  is  not  the  percentage  in  the  soil  but 
the  percentage  in  the  soil  water  that  counts.  A  farmer 
with  his  potash  locked  up  in  silicates  is  like  the  mer- 
chant who  has  left  the  key  of  his  safe  at  home  in  his 
other  trousers.  He  may  be  solvent,  but  he  cannot  meet 
a  sight  draft.  It  is  only  solvent  potash  that  passes 
current. 

In  the  days  of  our  grandfathers  we  had  not  only 
national  independence  but  household  independence. 
Every  homestead  had  its  own  potash  plant  and  soap 
factory.  The  frugal  housewife  dumped  the  maple 
wood  ashes  of  the  fireplace  into  a  hollow  log  set  up  on 
end  in  the  backyard.  Water  poured  over  the  ashes 
leached  out  the  lye,  which  drained  into  a  bucket  be- 
neath. This  gave  her  a  solution  of  pearl  ash  or  potas- 
sium carbonate  whose  concentration  she  tested  with  an 
egg  as  a  hydrometer.  In  the  meantime  she  had  been 
saving  up  all  the  waste  grease  from  the  frying  pan  and 
pork  rinds  from  the  plate  and  by  trying  out  these  she 
got  her  soap  fat.  Then  on  a  day  set  apart  for  this  dis- 
agreeable process  in  chemical  technology  she  boiled  the 
fat  and  the  lye  together  and  got  **soft  soap/'  or  as  the 
chemist  would  call  it,  potassium  stearate.  If  she 
wanted  hard  soap  she  **  salted  it  ouf  with  brine.  The 
sodium  stearate  being  less  soluble  was  precipitated  to 
the  top  and  cooled  into  a  solid  cake  that  could  be  cut 
into  bars  by  pack  thread.  But  the  frugal  housewife 
threw  away  in  the  waste  water  what  we  now  consider 
the  most  valuable  ingredients,  the  potash  and  the 
glycerin. 

But  the  old  lye-leach  is  only  to  be  found  in  ruins  on 
an  abandoned  farm  and  we  no  longer  burn  wood  at  the 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  51 

rate  of  a  log  a  night.  In  1916  even  under  the  stimnlns 
of  tenfold  prices  the  amount  of  potash  produced  as 
pearl  ash  was  only  412  tons — and  we  need  300,000  tons 
in  some  form.  It  would,  of  course,  be  very  desirable 
as  a  conservation  measure  if  all  the  sawdust  and  waste 
wood  were  utilized  by  charring  it  in  retorts.  The  gas 
makes  a  handy  fuel.  The  tar  washed  from  the  gas 
contains  a  lot  of  valuable  products.  And  potash  can  be 
leached  out  of  the  charcoal  or  from  its  ashes  whenever 
it  is  burned.  But  this  at  best  would  not  go  far  toward 
solving  the  problem  of  our  national  supply. 

There  are  other  potash-bearing  wastes  that  might  be 
utilized.  The  cement  mills  which  use  feldspar  in  com- 
bination with  limestone  give  off  a  potash  dust,  very 
much  to  the  annoyance  of  their  neighbors.  This  can 
be  collected  by  running  the  furnace  clouds  into  large 
settling  chambers  or  long  flues,  where  the  dust  may  be 
caught  in  bags,  or  washed  out  by  water  sprays  or 
thrown  down  by  electricity.  The  blast  furnaces  for 
iron  also  throw  off  potash-bearing  fumes. 

Our  six-million-ton  crop  of  sugar  beets  contains  some 
12,000  tons  of  nitrogen,  4000  tons  of  phosphoric  acid 
and  18,000  tons  of  potash,  all  of  which  is  lost  except 
where  the  waste  liquors  from  the  sugar  factory  are 
used  in  irrigating  the  beet  land.  The  beet  molasses, 
after  extracting  all  the  sugar  possible  by  means  of 
lime,  leaves  a  waste  liquor  from  which  the  potash  can 
be  recovered  by  evaporation  and  charring  and  leaching 
the  residue.  The  Germans  get  5000  tons  of  potassium 
cyanide  and  as  much  ammonium  sulfate  annually  from 
the  waste  liquor  of  their  beet  sugar  factories  and  if  it 
pays  them  to  save  this  it  ought  to  pay  us  where  potash 


52  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

is  dearer.  Various  other  industries  can  put  in  a  bit 
when  Uncle  Sam  passes  around  the  contribution  basket 
marked  *  *  Potash  for  the  Poor. '  ^  Wool  wastes  and  fish 
refuse  make  valuable  fertilizers,  although  they  will  not 
go  far  toward  solving  the  problem.  If  we  saved  all  our 
potash  by-products  they  would  not  supply  more  than 
fifteen  per  cent,  of  our  needs. 

Though  no  potash  beds  comparable  to  those  of  Stass- 
furt  have  yet  been  discovered  in  the  United  States,  yet 
in  Nebraska,  Utah,  California  and  other  western  states 
there  are  a  number  of  alkali  lakes,  wet  or  dry,  contain- 
ing a  considerable  amount  of  potash  mixed  with  soda 
salts.  Of  these  deposits  the  largest  is  Searles  Lake, 
California.  Here  there  are  some  twelve  square  miles 
of  salt  crust  some  seventy  feet  deep  and  the  brine  as 
pumped  out  contains  about  four  per  cent,  of  potassium 
chloride.  The  quantity  is  sufficient  to  supply  the  coun- 
try for  over  twenty  years,  but  it  is  not  an  easy  or  cheap 
job  to  separate  the  potassium  from  the  sodium  salts 
which  are  five  times  more  abundant.  These  being  less 
Boluble  than  the  potassium  salts  crystallize  out  first 
when  the  brine  is  evaporated.  The  final  crystalliza- 
tion is  done  in  vacuum  pans  as  in  getting  sugar  from 
the  cane  juice.  In  this  way  the  American  Trona  Cor- 
poration is  producing  some  4500  tons  of  potash  salts  a 
month  besides  a  thousand  tons  of  borax.  The  borax 
which  is  contained  in  the  brine  to  the  extent  of  1%  per 
cent,  is  removed  from  the  fertilizer  for  a  double  reason. 
It  is  salable  by  itself  and  it  is  detrimental  to  plant  life. 

Another  mineral  source  of  potash  is  alunite,  which  is 
a  sort  of  natural  alum,  or  double  sulfate  of  potassium 
and  aluminum,  with  about  ten  per  cent,  of  potash.    It 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  53 

contains  a  lot  of  extra  alumina,  but  after  roasting  in  a 
kiln  the  potassium  sulfate  can  be  leached  out.  The 
alunite  beds  near  Marysville,  Utah,  were  worked  for 
all  they  were  worth  during  the  war,  but  the  process  does 
not  give  potash  cheap  enough  for  our  needs  in  ordinary 
times. 

The  tourist  going  through  Wyoming  on  the  Union 
Pacific  will  have  to  the  north  of  him  what  is  marked  on 
the  map  as  the  ^^Leucite  Hills.''  If  he  looks  up  the 
word  in  the  Unabridged  that  he  carries  in  his  satchel 
he  will  find  that  leucite  is  a  kind  of  lava  and  that  it 
contains  potash.  But  he  will  also  observe  that  the 
potash  is  combined  with  alumina  and  silica,  which  are 
hard  to  get  out  and  useless  when  you  get  them  out 
One  of  the  lavas  of  the  Leucite  Hills,  that  named  from 
its  native  state  '^Wyomingite,''  gives  fifty-seven  per 
cent,  of  its  potash  in  a  soluble  form  on  roasting  with 
alunite — but  this  costs  too  much.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  all  the  potash  feldspars  and  mica.  They  are 
abundant  enough,  but  until  we  find  a  way  of  utilizing 
the  by-products,  say  the  silica  in  cement  and  the  alumi- 
num as  a  metal,  they  cannot  solve  our  problem. 

Since  it  is  so  hard  to  get  potash  from  the  land  it  has 
been  suggested  that  we  harvest  the  sea.  The  experts 
of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture  have 
placed  high  hopes  in  the  kelp  or  giant  seaweed  which 
floats  in  great  masses  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  not  far  off 
from  the  California  coast.  This  is  harvested  with  ocean 
reapers  run  by  gasoline  engines  and  brought  in  barges 
to  the  shore,  where  it  may  be  dried  and  used  locally  as 
a  fertilizer  or  burned  and  the  potassium  chloride 
leached  out  of  the  charcoal  ashes.    But  it  is  hard  to 


54 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


handle  the  bulky,  slimy  seaweed  cheaply  enough  to  get 
out  of  it  the  small  amount  of  potash  it  contains.  So 
efforts  are  now  being  made  to  get  more  out  of  the  kelp 
than  the  potash.  Instead  of  burning  the  seaweed  it  is 
fermented  in  vats  producing  acetic  acid  (vinegar). 
From  the  resulting  liquid  can  be  obtained  lime  acetate, 
potassium  chloride,  potassium  iodide,  acetone,  ethyl 
acetate  (used  as  a  solvent  for  guncotton)  and  algin,  a 
gelatin-like  gum. 


PRODUCTION  OF  POTASH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


Source 


Tons  KoO 


imo 

Per  cent. 

of  total 

production 


Tons  KjO 


1917 

Per  cent. 

of  total 

production 


Mineral  sources: 

Natural   brines 

Alunite    

Dust      from      cement 

mills    

Dust  from  blast  fur- 


naces      

Organic    Sources : 
Kelp    

Molasses  residue  from 
distillers     

Wood  ashes    

Waste  liquors  from 
beet- sugar  refiner- 
ies     

Miscellaneous  indus- 
trial wastes  


3,994 
1,850 


1,556 

1,845 
412 


63 


41.1 
19.0 


16.0 

19.0 

4.2 


20,652 
2,402 

1,621 

185 

3,752 

2,846 
621 

369 
305 


63.4 
7.3 

5.0 

0.6 

10.9 

8.8 
1.9 

1.1 
1.0 


Total 


9,720 


100.0 


32,573 


100.0 


— From  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Mines  Report,  1918. 
This   table  shows   how   inadequate   was   the   reaction   of   the   United 
States  to  the  war  demand  for  potassium  salts.     The  minimum  yearly 
requirements  of  the  United  States  are  estimated  to  be  250,000  tons  of 
potash. 

This  completes  our  survey  of  the  visible  sources  of 
potash  in  America.    In  1917  under  the  pressure  of  the 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  55 

embargo  and  unprecedented  prices  the  output  of  potash 
(K2O)  in  various  forms  was  raised  to  32,573  tons,  but 
this  is  only  about  a  tenth  as  much  as  we  needed.  In 
1918  potash  production  was  further  raised  to  52,135 
tons,  chiefly  through  the  increase  of  the  output  from 
natural  brines  to  39,255  tons,  nearly  twice  what  it  was 
the  year  before.  The  rust  in  cotton  and  the  resulting 
decrease  in  yield  during  the  war  are  laid  to  lack  of 
potash.  Truck  crops  grown  in  soils  deficient  in  potash 
do  not  stand  transportation  well.  The  Bureau  of 
Animal  Industry  has  shown  in  experiments  in  Aroos- 
took County,  Maine,  that  the  addition  of  moderate 
amounts  of  potash  doubled  the  yield  of  potatoes. 

Professor  Ostwald,  the  great  Leipzig  chemist, 
boasted  in  the  war: 

America  went  into  the  war  like  a  man  with  a  rope  round 
his  neck  which  is  in  his  enemy's  hands  and  is  pretty  tightly 
drawn.  With  its  tremendous  deposits  Germany  has  a  world 
monopoly  in  potash,  a  point  of  immense  value  which  cannot 
be  reckoned  too  highly  when  once  this  war  is  going  to  be  set- 
tled. It  is  in  Germany's  power  to  dictate  which  of  the  na- 
tions shall  have  plenty  of  food  and  which  shall  starve. 

If,  indeed,  some  mineralogist  or  metallurgist  will  cut 
that  rope  by  showing  us  a  supply  of  cheap  potash  we 
will  erect  him  a  monument  as  big  as  Washington's. 
But  Ostwald  is  wrong  in  supposing  that  America  is  as 
dependent  as  Germany  upon  potash.  The  bulk  of  our 
food  crops  are  at  present  raised  without  the  use  of  any 
fertilizers  whatever. 

As  the  cession  of  Lorraine  in  1871  gave  Germany  the 
phosphates  she  needed  for  fertilizers  so  the  retroces- 


56  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

eion  of  Alsace  in  1919  gives  France  the  potash  she 
needed  for  fertilizers.  Ten  years  before  the  war  a  bed 
of  potash  was  discovered  in  the  Forest  of  Monnebruck, 
near  Hartmannsweilerkopf,  the  peak  for  which  French 
and  Germans  contested  so  fiercely  and  so  long.  The 
layer  of  potassium  salts  is  16%  feet  thick  and  the  total 
deposit  is  estimated  to  be  275,000,000  tons  of  potash. 
At  any  rate  it  is  a  formidable  rival  of  Stassfurt  and  its 
acquisition  by  France  breaks  the  German  monopoly. 

When  we  turn  to  the  consideration  of  the  third  plant 
food  we  feel  better.  While  the  United  States  has  no 
such  monopoly  of  phosphates  as  Germany  had  of  pot- 
ash and  Chile  had  of  nitrates  we  have  an  abundance 
and  to  spare.  Whereas  we  formerly  imported  about 
$17,000,000  worth  of  potash  from  Germany  and  $20,- 
000,000  worth  of  nitrates  from  Chile  a  yeai*  we  exported 
$7,000,000  worth  of  phosphates. 

Whoever  it  was  who  first  noticed  that  the  grass  grew 
thicker  around  a  buried  bone  he  lived  so  long  ago  that 
we  cannot  do  honor  to  his  powers  of  observation,  but 
ever  since  then — whenever  it  was — old  bones  have  been 
used  as  a  fertilizer.  But  we  long  ago  used  up  all  the 
buffalo  bones  we  could  find  on  the  prairies  and  our 
packing  houses  could  not  give  us  enough  bone-meal  to 
go  around,  so  we  have  had  to  draw  upon  the  old  bone- 
yards  of  prehistoric  animals.  Deposits  of  lime  phos- 
phate of  such  origin  were  found  in  South  Carolina  in 
1870  and  in  Florida  in  1888.  Since  then  the  industry 
has  developed  with  amazing  rapidity  until  in  1913  the 
United  States  produced  over  three  million  tons  of  phos- 
phates, nearly  half  of  which  was  sent  abroad.  The 
chief  source  at  present  is  the  Florida  pebbles,  which 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  57 

are  dredged  up  from  the  bottoms  of  lakes  and  rivers  or 
washed  out  from  the  banks  of  streams  by  a  hydraulic 
jet.  The  gravel  is  washed  free  from  the  sand  and 
clay,  screened  and  dried,  and  then  is  ready  for  ship- 
ment. The  rock  deposits  of  Florida  and  South  Caro- 
lina are  more  limited  than  the  pebble  beds  and  may  be 
exhausted  in  twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  but  Tennessee 
and  Kentucky  have  a  lot  in  reserve  and  behind  them 
are  Idaho,  Wyoming  and  other  western  states  with 
millions  of  acres  of  phosphate  land,  so  in  this  respect 
we  are  independent. 

But  even  here  the  war  hit  us  hard.  For  the  calcium 
phosphate  as  it  comes  from  the  ground  is  not  altogether 
available  because  it  is  not  very  soluble  and  the  plants 
can  only  use  what  they  can  get  in  the  water  that  they 
suck  up  from  the  soil.  But  if  the  phosphate  is  treated 
with  sulfuric  acid  it  becomes  more  soluble  and  this  prod- 
uct is  sold  as  ** superphosphate.''  The  sulfuric  acid  is 
made  mostly  from  iron  pyrite  and  this  we  have  been 
content  to  import,  over  800,000  tons  of  it  a  year,  largely 
from  Spain,  although  we  have  an  abundance  at  home. 
Since  the  shortage  of  shipping  shut  off  the  foreign  sup- 
ply we  are  using  more  of  our  own  pyrite  and  also  our 
deposits  of  native  sulfur  along  the  Gulf  coast.  But  as 
a  consequence  of  this  sulfuric  acid  during  the  war  went 
up  from  $5  to  $25  a  ton  and  acidulated  phosphates  rose 
correspondingly. 

Germany  is  short  on  natural  phosphates  as  she  is 
long  on  natural  potash.  But  she  has  made  up  for  it  by 
utilizing  a  by-product  of  her  steelworks.  When  phos- 
phoriis  occurs  in  iron  ore,  even  in  minute  amounts,  it 
makes  the  steel  brittle.    Much  of  the  iron  ores  of 


58  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

Alsace-Lorraine  were  formerly  considered  unworkable 
because  of  this  impurity,  but  shortly  after  Germany 
took  these  provinces  from  France  in  1871  a  method  was 
discovered  by  two  British  metallurgists,  Thomas  and 
Gilchrist,  by  which  the  phosphorus  is  removed  from  the 
iron  in  the  process  of  converting  it  into  steel.  This 
consists  in  lining  the  crucible  or  converter  with  lime 
and  magnesia,  which  takes  up  the  phosphorus  from  the 
melted  iron.  This  slag  lining,  now  rich  in  phosphates, 
can  be  taken  out  and  ground  up  for  fertilizer.  So  the 
phosphorus  which  used  to  be  a  detriment  is  now  an 
additional  source  of  profit  and  this  British  invention 
has  enabled  Germany  to  make  use  of  the  territory  she 
stole  from  France  to  outstrip  England  in  the  steel  busi- 
ness. In  1910  Germany  produced  2,000,000  tons  of 
Thomas  slag  while  only  160,000  tons  were  produced  in 
the  United  Kingdom.  The  open  hearth  process  now 
chiefly  used  in  the  United  States  gives  an  acid  instead 
of  a  basic  phosphate  slag,  not  suitable  as  a  fertilizer. 
The  iron  ore  of  America,  with  the  exception  of  some  of 
the  southern  ores,  carries  so  small  a  percentage  of 
phosphorus  as  to  make  a  basic  process  inadvisable. 

Recently  the  Germans  have  been  experimenting  withi 
a  combined  fertilizer,  Schroder's  potassium  phosphate, 
which  is  said  to  be  as  good  as  Thomas  slag  for  phos- 
phates and  as  good  as   Stassfurt  salts  for  potash. 
The  American  Cyanamid  Company  is  just  putting- 
out  a  similar  product,  *  *  Ammo-Phos, ' '  in  which  the 
ammonia  can  be  varied  from  thirteen  to  twenty  per 
cent,  and  the  phosphoric  acid  from  twenty  to  forty- 
seven  per  cent,  so  as  to  give  the  proportions  desired ( 
for  any  crop.    We  have  then  the  possibility  of  getting 


FEEDING  THE  SOIL  59 

the  three  essential  plant  foods  altogether  in  one  com- 
pound with  the  elimination  of  most  of  the  extraneous 
elements  such  as  lime  and  magnesia,  chlorids  and  sul- 
fates. 

For  the  last  three  liundred  years  the  American  peo- 
ple have  been  living  on  the  unearned  increment  of  the 
unoccupied  land.  But  now  that  all  our  land  has  been 
staked  out  in  homesteads  and  we  cannot  turn  to  new 
soil  when  we  have  used  up  the  old,  we  must  learn,  as 
the  older  races  have  learned,  how  to  keep  up  the  supply 
of  plant  food.  Only  in  this  way  can  our  population  iu' 
crease  and  prosper.  As  we  have  seen,  the  phosphate 
question  need  not  bother  us  and  we  can  see  our  way 
clear  toward  solving  the  nitrate  question.  We  gave 
the  Government  $20,000,000  to  experiment  on  the  pro- 
duction of  nitrates  from  the  air  and  the  results  will 
serve  for  fields  as  well  as  firearms.  But  the  question 
of  an  independent  supply  of  cheap  potash  is  still  un- 
solved. 


'1 


TV 
COAL-TAE  COLOES 

If  yon  put  a  bit  of  soft  coal  into  a  test  tnbe  (or,  if  yon' 
have  n't  a  test  tnbe,  into  a  clay  tobacco  pipe  and  lute  it 
over  with  clay)  and  heat  it  you  will  find  a  gas  coming 
out  >of  the  end  of  the  tube  that  will  burn  with  a  yellow 
smoky  flame.  After  all  the  gas  comes  off  you  will  find 
in  the  bottom  of  the  test  tube  a  chunk  of  dry,  porous 
coke.  These,  then,  are  the  two  main  products  of  the 
destructive  distillation  of  coal.  But  if  you  are  an 
unusually  observant  person,  that  is,  if  you  are  a  bom 
chemist  with  an  eye  to  by-products,  you  will  notice 
along  in  the  middle  of  the  tube  where  it  is  neither  too 
hot  nor  too  cold  some  dirty  drops  of  water  and  some 
black  sticky  stuff.  If  you  are  just  an  ordinary  person, 
you  won't  pay  any  attention  to  this  because  there  is 
only  a  little  of  it  and  because  what  you  are  after  is  the 
coke  and  gas.  You  regard  the  nasty,  smelly  mess  that 
comes  in  between  as  merely  a  nuisance  because  it  clogs 
up  and  spoils  your  nice,  clean  tube. 

Now  that  is  the  way  the  gas-makers  and  coke- 
makers — being  for  the  most  part  ordinary  persons  and' 
not  born  chemists — used  to  regard  the  water  and  tar 
that  got  into  their  pipes.  They  washed  it  out  so  as  toi 
have  the  gas  clean  and  then  ran  it  into  the  creek.  But) 
the  neighbors — especially  those  who  fished  in  the 
stream  below  the  gas-works — made  a  fuss  about  spoil- 

60 


COAL-TAR  COLOES  61 

ing  the  water,  so  the  gas-men  gave  away  the  tar  to  the 
'  boys  for  use  in  celebrating  the  Fourth  of  July  and 
i  election  night  or  sold  it  for  roofing. 
I  But  this  same  tar,  which  for  a  hundred  years  was 
[  thrown  away  and  nearly  half  of  which  is  thrown  away 
I  yet  in  the  United  States,  turns  out  to  be  one  of  the  most 
[  useful  things  in  the  world.  It  is  one  of  the  strategic 
points  in  war  and  commerce.  It  wounds  and  heals.  It 
b  supplies  munitions  and  medicines.  It  is  like  the  magic 
j  purse  of  Fortunatus  from  which  anything  wished  for 
j  could  be  drawn.  The  chemist  puts  his  hand  into  the 
I  black  mass  and  draws  out  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow. 
I  This  evil-smelling  substance  beats  the  rose  in  the  pro- 
[  duction  of  perfume  and  surpasses  the  honey-comb  in 
[  sweetness. 

I      Bishop  Berkeley,  after  having  proved  that  all  mat- 
ter was  in  your  mind,  wrote  a  book  to  prove  that  wood 
tar  would  cure  all  diseases.    Nobody  reads  it  now. 
I; The  name  is  enough  to  frighten  them  off:  **Siris:  A 
;  Chain  of  Philosophical  Reflections  and  Inquiries  Con- 
.cerning  the  Virtues  of  Tar  Water.''    He  had  a  sort  of 
■mystical  idea  that  tar  contained  the  quintessence  of  the 
*  forest,  the  purified  spirit  of  the  trees,  which  could 
^  somehow  revive  the  spirit  of  man.    People  said  he  was 
I  crazy  on  the  subject,  and  doubtless  he  was,  but  the  in- 
i  teresting  thing  about  it  is  that  not  even  his  active  and 
j;  ingenious  imagination  could  begin  to  suggest  all  of  the 
)  strange  things  that  can  be  got  out  of  tar,  whether  wood 
i  or  coal. 

I  The  reason  why  tar  supplies  all  sorts  of  useful  mate- 
f  rial  is  because  it  is  indeed  the  quintessence  of  the  f  or- 
i;  est,  of  the  forests  of  untold  millenniums  if  it  is  coal  tar. 


62  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

If  you  are  acquainted  with  a  village  tinker,  one  of  those 
all-round  mechanics  who  still  survive  in  this  age  of  spe- 
cialization and  can  mend  anything  from  a  baby-carriage 
to  an  automobile,  you  will  know  that  he  has  on  the  floor 
of  his  back  shop  a  heap  of  broken  machinery  from  which 
he  can  get  almost  anything  he  wants,  a  copper  wire,  a^ 
zinc  plate,  a  brass  screw  or  a  steel  rod.  Now  coal  tar  is  i 
the  scrap-heap  of  the  vegetable  kingdom.  It  contains 
a  little  of  almost  everything  that  makes  up  trees.  But 
you  must  not  imagine  that  all  that  comes  out  of  coalt 
tar  is  contained  in  it.  There  are  only  about  a  dozen  i 
primary  products  extracted  from  coal  tar,  but  from 
these  the  chemist  is  able  to  build  up  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  new  substances.  This  is  true  creative  chemis- 
try, for  most  of  these  compounds  are  not  to  be  found 
in  plants  and  never  existed  before  they  were  made  in 
the  laboratory.  It  used  to  be  thought  that  organic 
compounds,  the  products  of  vegetable  and  animal  life, 
could  only  be  produced  by  organized  beings,  that  they 
were  created  out  of  inorganic  matter  by  the  magic 
touch  of  some  ** vital  principle.'^  But  since  the  chem- 
ist has  learned  how,  he  finds  it  easier  to  make  organic 
than  inorganic  substances  and  he  is  confident  that  he 
can  reproduce  any  compound  that  he  can  analyze.  He 
cannot  only  imitate  the  manufacturing  processes  of 
the  plants  and  animals,  but  he  can  often  beat  them  ati 
their  own  game. 

When  coal  is  heated  in  the  open  air  it  is  burned  up 
and  nothing  but  the  ashes  is  left.  But  heat  the  coal  in 
an  enclosed  vessel,  say  a  big  fireclay  retort,  and  it  can- 
not burn  up  because  the  oxygen  of  the  air  cannot  get 
to  it.     So  it  breaks  up.     All  parts  of  it  that  can  be  vola- 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  63 

tized  at  a  high  heat  pass  off  through  the  outlet  pipe  and 
nothing  is  left  in  the  retort  but  coke,  that  is  carbon 
with  the  ash  it  contains.  When  the  escaping  vapors 
l-reach  a  cool  part  of  the  outlet  pipe  the  oily  and  tarry 
matter  condenses  out.  Then  the  gas  is  passed  up 
through  a  tower  down  which  water  spray  is  falling  and 
.thus  is  washed  free  from  ammonia  and  everything  else 
that  is  soluble  in  water. 

This  process  is  called  ^* destructive  distillation.'' 
What  products  come  off  depends  not  only  upon  the 
composition  of  the  particular  variety  of  coal  used,  but 
upon  the  heat,  pressure  and  rapidity  of  distillation. 
The  way  you  run  it  depends  upon  what  you  are  most 
anxious  to  have.  If  you  want  illuminating  gas  you  will 
leave  in  it  the  benzene.  If  you  are  after  the  greatest 
yield  of  tar  products,  you  Impoverish  the  gas  by  taking 
out  the  benzene  and  get  a  blue  instead  of  a  bright  yellow 
flame.  If  all  you  are  after  is  cheap  coke,  you  do  not 
ibother  about  the  by-products,  but  let  them  escape  and 
iburn  as  they  please.  The  tourist  passing  across  the 
coal  region  at  night  could  see  through  his  car  window 
ithe  flames  of  hundreds  of  old-fashioned  bee-hive  coke- 
Wens  and  if  he  were  of  economical  mind  he  might  re- 
flect that  this  display  of  fireworks  was  costing  the 
;'country  $75,000,000  a  year  besides  consuming  the  irre- 
placeable fuel  supply  of  the  future.  But  since  the  gas 
»^as  not  needed  outside  of  the  cities  and  since  the  coal 
'tar,  if  it  could  be  sold  at  all,  brought  only  a  cent  or  two 
a.  gallon,  how  could  the  coke-makers  be  expected  to 
throw  out  their  old  bee-hive  ovens  and  put  in  the  expen- 
jsive  retorts  and  towers  necessary  to  the  recovery  of 
ithe  by-products?    But  within  the  last  ten  years  the  by- 


64 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


1  ton  of  coal  may  give 


product  ovens  have  come  into  use  and  now  nearly  hali 
our  coke  is  raade  in  them. 

Although  the  products  of  destructive  distillatior 
vary  within  wide  limits,  yet  the  following  table  maj 
serve  to  give  an  approximate  idea  of  what  may  be  gol 
from  a  ton  of  soft  coal: 

Gas,  12,000  cubic  feet 

f  ammonium  sulfate 

Liquor   (Washings)-;        (7-25  pounds) 

benzene  (10-20  pounds) 
toluene   (3  pounds) 
xylene    {V/2  pounds) 

Tar   (120  pounds)    ^   phenol    i^/i  pound) 

naphthalene  (%  pound) 
anthracene    (%  pound) 
pitch   (80  pounds) 

Coke   (1200-1500  pounds) 

When  the  tar  is  redistilled  we  get,  among  othei 
things,  the  ten  *^ crudes'^  which  are  fundamental  mate- 
rial for  making  dyes.  Their  names  are:  benzene,  to- 
luene, xylene,  phenol,  cresol,  naphthalene,  anthracene' 
methyl  anthracene,  phenanthrene  and  carbazol. 

There !  I  had  to  introduce  you  to  the  whole  receiving 
line,  but  now  that  that  ceremony  is  over  we  are  at  lib- 
erty to  do  as  we  do  at  a  reception,  meet  our  old  friends 
get  acquainted  with  one  or  two  more  and  turn  our  backs  i 
on  the  rest.  Two  of  them,  I  am  sure,  youVe  met  be- 
fore, phenol,  which  is  common  carbolic  acid,  and  naph- 
thalene, which  we  use  for  mothballs.  But  notice  one 
thing  in  passing,  that  not  one  of  them  is  a  dye.  Thej 
are  all  colorless  liquids  or  white  solids.  Also  they  al 
have  an  indescribable  odor — all  odors  that  you  don'i 
know  are  indescribable — which  gives  them  and  theii 
progeny,  even  when  odorless,  the  name  of  **  aromatic 
compounds. ' ' 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  65 

The  most  important  of  the  ten  because  he  is  the 
father  of  the  family  is  benzene,  otherwise  called  benzol, 
but  must  not  be  confused  with  ** benzine*'  spelled  with 
an  i  which  we  used  to  bum  and  clean  our  clothes  with. 
*^ Benzine*'  is  a  kind  of  gasoline,  but  benzene  alias  ben- 
zol has  quite  another  constitution,  although  it  looks  and 
burns  the  same.  Now  the  search  for  the  constitution 
of  benzene  is  one  of  the  most  exciting  chapters  in  chem- 
istry; also  one  of  the  most  intricate  chapters,  but,  in 
spite  of  that,  I  believe  I  can  make  the  main  point  of  it 
clear  even  to  those  who  have  never  studied  chemistry — 
provided  they  retain  their  childish  liking  for  puzzles. 
It  is  really  much  like  putting  together  the  old  six-block 
Chinese  puzzle.  The  chemist  can  work  better  if  he  has 
a  picture  of  what  he  is  working  with.  Now  his  unit  is 
the  molecule,  which  is  too  small  even  to  analyze  with 
the  microscope,  no  matter  how  high  powered.  So  he 
makes  up  a  sort  of  diagram  of  the  molecule,  and  since 
he  knows  the  number  of  atoms  and  that  they  are  some- 
how attached  to  one  another,  he  represents  each  atom 
by  the  first  letter  of  its  name  and  the  points  of  attach- 
ment or  bonds  by  straight  lines  connecting  the  atoms  of 
the  different  elements.  Now  it  is  one  of  the  rules  of  the 
game  that  all  the  bonds  must  be  connected  or  hooked  up 
with  atoms  at  both  ends,  that  there  shall  be  no  free 
hands  reaching  out  into  empty  space.  Carbon,  for  in- 
stance, has  four  bonds  and  hydrogen  only  one.  They 
unite,  therefore,  in  the  proportion  of  one  atom  of  car- 
bon to  four  of  hydrogen,  or  CH4,  which  is  methane  or 
marsh  gas  and  obviously  the  simplest  of  the  hydro- 
carbons. But  we  have  more  complex  hydrocarbons 
such  as  CqRi^,  known  as  hexane.    Now  if  you  try  to 


S6  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

draw  the  diagrams  or  structural  formulas  of  these  two 
compounds  you  will  easily  get 


H 

HHHHHH 

H-C-H 

H-C-C-C-C-C-C-H 

k 

lliHHHH 

methane 

hexane 

Each  carbon  atom,  you  see,  has  its  four  hands  out- 
stretched and  duly  grasped  by  one-handed  hydrogen 
atoms  or  by  neighboring  carbon  atoms  in  the  chain. 
We  can  have  such  chains  as  long  as  you  please,  thirty 
or  more  in  a  chain ;  they  are  all  contained  in  kerosene 
and  paraffin. 

So  far  the  chemist  found  it  easy  to  construct  dia- 
grams that  would  satisfy  his  sense  of  the  fitness  of 
things,  but  when  he  found  that  benzene  had  the  compo- 
sition CgHe  he  was  puzzled.  If  you  try  to  draw  the 
picture  of  CeHg  you  will  get  something  like  this : 

mm. 
MM 

which  is  an  absurdity  because  more  than  half  of  the 
carbon  hands  are  waving  wildly  around  asking  to  be 
held  by  something.  Benzene,  CqRq,  evidently  is  like 
hexane,  CqHi^^,  in  having  a  chain  of  six  carbon  atoms, 
but  it  has  dropped  its  H's  like  an  Englishman.  Eight 
of  the  H's  are  missing. 

Now  one  of  the  men  who  was  worried  over  this  ben- 
zene puzzle  was  the  German  chemist,  Kekule.  One  eve- 
ning after  working  over  the  problem  all  day  he  was 
sitting  by  the  fire  tr3dng  to  rest,  but  he  could  not 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  67 

throw  it  off  his  mind.  The  carbon  and  the  hydrogen 
atoms  danced  like  imps  on  the  carpet  and  as  he  watched 
them  through  his  half-closed  eyes  he  suddenly  saw  that 
the  chain  of  six  carbon  atoms  had  joined  at  the  ends 
and  formed  a  ring  while  the  six  hydrogen  atoms  were 
holding  on  to  the  outside  hands,  in  this  fashion : 

H 

I 

n-G      C-H 

H-i!     in 

•V 

Professor  Kekule  saw  at  once  that  the  demons  of  his 
subconscious  self  had  furnished  him  with  a  clue  to  the 
labyrinth,  and  so  it  proved.  We  need  not  suppose  that 
the  benzene  molecule  if  we  could  see  it  would  look  any- 
thing like  this  diagram  of  it,  but  the  theory  works  and 
that  is  all  the  scientist  asks  of  any  theory.  By  its  use 
thousands  of  new  compounds  have  been  constructed 
which  have  proved  of  inestimable  value  to  man.  The 
modern  chemist  is  not  a  discoverer,  he  is  an  inventor. 
He  sits  down  at  his  desk  and  draws  a  ** Kekule  ring'' 
or  rather  hexagon.  Then  he  rubs  out  an  H  and  hooks 
a  nitro  group  (NOo)  on  to  the  carbon  in  place  of  it; 
next  he  rubs  out  the  O2  of  the  nitro  group  and  puts  in 
H2 ;  then  he  hitches  on  such  other  elements,  or  carbon 
chains  and  rings  as  he  likes.  He  works  like  an  archi- 
tect designing  a  house  and  when  he  gets  a  picture  of 
the  proposed  compounds  to  suit  him  he  goes  into  the 
laboratory  to  make  it.    First  he  takes  down  the  bottle 


68 


CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 


O 

H  '■ 

\  /S-O-Na 


H 


II     H        " 
N  H-C-H 

>=< 

„    H  H-N-H 
H-C.  Vh 


H 


C  —  C 


o 

S-0 

i 

o 


Na 


of  benzene  and  boils 
up  some  of  this  with 
nitric  acid  and  sul- 
furic acid.  This  he 
puts  in  the  nitro 
group  and  makes 
nitro-benzene,  C^R^- 
NO2.  He  treats 
this  with  hydrogen, 
which  displaces  the 
oxygen  and  gives 
CeHgNHg  or  aniline, 
which  is  the  basis  of 
so  many  of  these 
compounds  that  they 
are  all  commonly 
called  ^*the  aniline 
dyes/*  But  aniline 
itself  is  not  a  dye. 
It  is  a  colorless  or 
brownish  oil. 

It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  follow  our 
chemist  any  farther 
now  that  we  have 
seen  how  he  works, 
but  before  we  pass 
on  we  will  just  look 
at  one  of  his  pro- 
ducts, not  one  of  the 
most  complicated 
but  still  complicated 
enough. 


^«_T   A_. 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  69 

The  name  of  this  is  sodium  ditolyl-disazo-beta-naph- 
thylamine-  6  -  sulfonic-beta-naphthylamine-S.G-disulfon- 
ate. 

These  chemical  names  of  organic  compounds  are 
discouraging  to  the  beginner  and  amusing  to  the  lay- 
man, but  that  is  because  neither  of  them  realizes  that 
they  are  not  really  words  but  formulas.  They  are 
hyphenated  because  they  come  from  Germany.  The 
name  given  above  is  no  more  of  a  mouthful  than  **a- 
square-plus-two-a-b-plus-b-square''  or  '*  Third  Assist- 
ant Secretary  of  War  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States  of  America."  The  trade  name  of  this  dye  is 
Brilliant  Congo,  but  while  that  is  handier  to  say  it  does 
not  mean  anything.  Nobody  but  an  expert  in  dyes 
would  know  what  it  was,  while  from  the  formula  name 
any  chemist  familiar  with  such  compounds  could  draw 
its  picture,  tell  how  it  would  behave  and  what  it  was 
made  from,  or  even  make  it.  The  old  alchemist  was  a 
secretive  and  pretentious  person  and  used  to  invent 
queer  names  for  the  purpose  of  mystifying  and  awing 
the  ignorant.  But  the  chemist  in  dropping  the  al-  has 
dropped  the  idea  of  secrecy  and  his  names,  though 
equally  appalling  to  the  layman,  are  designed  to  reveal 
and  not  to  conceal. 

From  this  brief  explanation  the  reader  who  has  not 
studied  chemistry  will,  I  think,  be  able  to  get  some  idea 
of  how  these  very  intricate  compounds  are  built  up  step 
by  step.  A  completed  house  is  hard  to  understand,  but 
when  we  see  the  mason  laying  one  brick  on  top  of  an- 
other it  does  not  seem  so  difficult,  although  if  we  tried 
to  do  it  we  should  not  find  it  so  easy  as  we  think.  Any- 
how, let  me  give  you  a  hint.    If  you  want  to  make  a 


70 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


good  impression  on  a  chemist  don^t  tell  him  that  he 
seems  to  you  a  sort  of  magician,  master  of  a  black  art, 


^ 

o 

•s 

^ 

^o 

tr% 

o 

COAL 

I_»J 

100  7o 

COKE 

1 

72%  of  Coal 

GAS 

^£ 

22% 

o 

-1 

ofCoal 

O 

NO 

a: 

|5 

to 

-Comparison  of  Coal  and 
Its  Distillation  Products 

From  HesBe's  "The  Industry  of  the  Coal  Tar  Dyes,"  Journal  of  Indus- 
trial and  Engineering  Chemistry,  December,  1914 

and  all  that  nonsense.  The  chemist  has  been  trying 
for  three  hundred  years  to  live  down  the  reputation  of 
being  inspired  of  the  devil  and  it  makes  him  mad  to 
have  his  past  thrown  up  at  him  in  this  fashion.  If  his 
tactless  admirers  would  stop  saying  *4t  is  all  a  mys- 


COAL-TAE  COLOES  71 

tery  and  a  miracle  to  me,  and  I  cannot  understand  it" 
and  pay  attention  to  what  he  is  telling  them  they  would 
understand  it  and  would  find  that  it  is  no  more  of  a 
mystery  or  a  miracle  than  anything  else.  You  can 
make  an  electrician  mad  in  the  same  way  by  inter- 
rupting his  explanation  of  a  dynamo  by  asking:  **But 
you  cannot  tell  me  what  electricity  really  is.*'  The 
electrician  does  not  care  a  rap  what  electricity  **  really 
is" — if  there  really  is  any  meaning  to  that  phrase. 
All  he  wants  to  know  is  what  he  can  do  with  it. 

The  tar  obtained  from  the  gas  plant  or  the  coke  plant 
has  now  to  be  redistilled,  giving  off  the  ten  ** crudes" 
already  mentioned  and  leaving  in  the  still  sixty-five  per 
cent,  of  pitch,  which  may  be  used  for  roofing,  paving 
and  the  like.  The  ten  primary  products  or  crudes  are 
then  converted  into  secondary  products  or  **  intermedi- 
ates" by  processes  like  that  for  the  conversion  of  ben- 
zene into  aniline.  There  are  some  three  hundred  of 
these  intermediates  in  use  and  from  them  are  built  up 
more  than  three  times  as  many  dyes.  The  year  before 
the  war  the  American  custom  house  listed  5674  distinct 
brands  of  synthetic  dyes  imported,  chiefly  from  Ger- 
many, but  some  of  these  were  trade  names  for  the  same 
product  made  by  different  firms  or  represented  by  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  purity  or  form  of  preparation.  Al- 
though the  number  of  possible  products  is  unlimited 
and  over  five  thousand  dyes  are  known,  yet  only  about 
nine  hundred  are  in  use.  We  can  sununarize  the  situa- 
tion so : 

Coal-tar->-  10  cnidea->-  300  intermediate8->- 900  dye8->-  5000  brands. 

Or,  to  borrow  the  neat  simile  used  by  Dr.  Bemhard  C, 


72  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

Hesse,  it  is  like  cloth-making  where  *Hen  jBbers  make 
300  yarns  which  are  woven  into  900  patterns.'* 

The  advantage  of  the  artificial  dyestuffs  over  those 
found  in  nature  lies  in  their  variety  and  adaptability. 
Practically  any  desired  tint  or  shade  can  be  made  for 
any  particular  fabric.  If  my  lady  wants  a  new  kind  of 
green  for  her  stockings  or  her  hair  she  can  have  it. 
Candies  and  jellies  and  drinks  can  be  made  more  attrac- 
tive and  therefore  more  appetizing  by  varied  colors. 
Easter  eggs  and  Easter  bonnets  take  on  new  and 
brighter  hues. 

More  and  more  the  chemist  is  becoming  the  architect 
of  his  own  fortunes.  He  does  not  make  discoveries  by 
picking  up  a  beaker  and  pouring  into  it  a  little  from 
each  bottle  on  the  shelf  to  see  what  happens.  He  gen- 
erally knows  what  he  is  after,  and  he  generally  gets  it, 
although  he  is  still  often  baffled  and  occasionally  hap- 
pens on  something  quite  unexpected  and  perhaps  more 
valuable  than  what  he  was  looking  for.  Columbus  was 
looking  for  India  when  he  ran  into  an  obstacle  that 
proved  to  be  America.  William  Henry  Perkin  was 
looking  for  quinine  when  he  blundered  into  that  rich 
and  undiscovered  country,  the  aniline  dyes.  William 
Henry  was  a  queer  boy.  He  had  rather  listen  to  a 
chemistry  lecture  than  eat.  When  he  was  attending 
the  City  of  London  School  at  the  age  of  thirteen  there 
was  an  extra  course  of  lectures  on  chemistry  given  at 
the  noon  recess,  so  he  skipped  his  lunch  to  take  them 
in.  Hearing  that  a  German  chemist  named  Hofmann 
had  opened  a  laboratory  in  the  Royal  College  of  Lon- 
don he  headed  for  that.  Hofmann  obviously  had  no 
fear  of  forcing  the  young  intellect  prematurely.     He 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  73 

perhaps  had  never  heard  that  ^*the  tender  petals  of  the 
adolescent  mind  must  be  allowed  to  open  slowly."  He 
admitted  young  Perkin  at  the  age  of  fifteen  and  started 
him  on  research  at  the  end  of  his  second  year.  An 
American  student  nowadays  thinks  he  is  lucky  if  he  gets 
started  on  his  research  five  years  older  than  Perkin. 
Now  if  Hofmaim  had  studied  pedagogical  psychology 
he  would  have  been  informed  that  nothing  chills  the 
ardor  of  the  adolescent  mind  like  being  set  at  tasks 
too  great  for  its  powers.  If  he  had  heard  this  and  be- 
lieved it,  he  would  not  have  allowed  Perkin  to  spend 
two  years  in  fruitless  endeavors  to  isolate  phenan- 
threne  from  coal  tar  and  to  prepare  artificial  quinine — 
and  in  that  case  Perkin  would  never  have  discovered 
the  aniline  dyes.  But  Perkin,  so  far  from  being  dis- 
couraged, set  up  a  private  laboratory  so  he  could  work 
over-time.  AMiile  working  here  during  the  Easter  va- 
cation of  1856 — the  date  is  as  well  worth  remembering 
as  1066 — he  was  oxidizing  some  aniline  oil  when  he  got 
what  chemists  most  detest,  a  black,  tarry  mass  instead 
of  nice,  clean  crystals.  When  he  went  to  wash  this  out 
with  alcohol  he  was  surprised  to  find  that  it  gave  a 
beautiful  purple  solution.  This  was  *^ mauve,"  the 
first  of  the  aniline  dyes. 

The  funny  thing  about  it  was  that  when  Perkin  tried 
to  repeat  the  experiment  with  purer  aniline  he  could 
not  get  his  color.  It  was  because  he  was  working  with 
impure  chemicals,  with  aniline  containing  a  little  tolui- 
dine,  that  he  discovered  mauve.  It  was,  as  I  said,  a 
lucky  accident.  But  it  was  not  accidental  that  the  acci- 
dent happened  to  the  young  fellow  who  spent  his  noon- 
ings and  vacations  at  the  study  of  chemistry.    A  man 


74  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

may  not  find  what  lie  is  looking  for,  but  he  never  finds 
anything  unless  he  is  looking  for  something. 

Mauve  was  a  product  of  creative  chemistry,  for  it 
was  a  substance  that  had  never  existed  before.  Per- 
kin's  next  great  triumph,  ten  years  later,  was  in  rival- 
ing Nature  in  the  manufacture  of  one  of  her  own  choice 
products.  This  is  alizarin,  the  coloring  matter  con- 
tained in  the  madder  root.  It  was  an  ancient  and  ori- 
ental dyestuff,  known  as  ** Turkey  red''  or  by  its  Ara- 
bic name  of  ^^alizari."  When  madder  was  introduced 
into  France  it  became  a  profitable  crop  and  at  one  time 
half  a  million  tons  a  year  were  raised.  A  couple  of 
French  chemists,  Robiquet  and  Colin,  extracted  from 
madder  its  active  principle,  alizarin,  in  1828,  but  it  was 
not  until  forty  years  later  that  it  was  discovered  that 
alizarin  had  for  its  base  one  of  the  coal-tar  products, 
anthracene.  Then  came  a  neck-and-neck  race  between 
Perkin  and  his  German  rivals  to  see  which  could  dis- 
cover a  cheap  process  for  making  alizarin  from  anthra- 
cene. The  German  chemists  beat  him  to  the  patent  of- 
fice by  one  day  1  Graebe  and  Liebermann  filed  their  ap- 
plication for  a  patent  on  the  sulfuric  acid  process  as  No. 
1936  on  June  25,  1869.  Perkin  filed  his  for  the  same 
process  as  No.  1948  on  June  26.  It  had  required 
twenty  years  to  determine  the  constitution  of  alizarin, 
but  within  six  months  from  its  first  synthesis  the  com- 
mercial process  was  developed  and  within  a  few  years 
the  sale  of  artificial  alizarin  reached  $8,000,000  an- 
nually. The  madder  fields  of  France  were  put  to  other 
uses  and  even  the  French  soldiers  became  dependent 
on  made-in-Germany  dyes  for  their  red  trousers.  The 
British  soldiers  were  placed  in  a  similar  situation  as 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  75 

regards  their  red  coats  when  after  1878  the  azo  scarlets 
put  the  cochineal  bug  out  of  business. 

The  modem  chemist  has  robbed  royalty  of  its  most 
distinctive  insignia,  Tyrian  purple.  In  ancient  times 
to  be  **porphyrogene,''  thaT  is  **bom  to  the  purple," 
was  like  admission  to  the  Almanach  de  Gotha  at  the 
present  time,  for  only  princes  or  their  wealthy  rivals 
could  afford  to  pay  $600  a  pound  for  crimsoned  linen. 
The  precious  dye  is  secreted  by  a  snail-like  shellfish  of 
the  eastern  coast  of  the  Mediterranean.  From  a  tiny 
sac  behind  the  head  a  drop  of  thick  whitish  liquid, 
smelling  like  garlic,  can  be  extracted.  If  this  is  spread 
upon  cloth  of  any  kind  and  exposed  to  air  and  sunlight 
it  turns  first  green,  next  blue  and  then  purple.  If  the 
cloth  is  washed  with  soap — that  is,  set  by  alkali — ^it 
becomes  a  fast  crimson,  such  as  Catholic  cardinals  still 
wear  as  princes  of  the  church.  The  Phoenician  mer- 
chants made  fortunes  out  of  their  monopoly,  but  after 
the  fall  of  Tyre  it  became  one  of  **the  lost  arts'' — and 
accordingly  considered  by  those  whose  faces  are  set 
toward  the  past  as  much  more  wonderful  than  any  of 
[  the  new  arts.  But  in  1909  Friedlander  put  an  end  to ' 
the  superstition  by  analyzing  Tyrian  purple  and  find- 
ing that  it  was  already  known.  It  was  the  same  as  a 
dye  that  had  been  prepared  five  years  before  by  Sachs 
but  had  not  come  into  commercial  use  because  of  its 
inferiority  to  others  in  the  market.  It  required  12,000 
of  the  mollusks  to  supply  the  little  material  needed  for 
analysis,  but  once  the  chemist  had  identified  it  he  did 
not  need  to  bother  the  Murex  further,  for  he  could  make 
it  by  the  ton  if  he  had  wanted  to.  The  coloring  prin- 
ciple turned  out  to  be  a  di-brom  indigo,  that  is  the 


76  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

same  as  the  substance  extracted  from  the  Indian 
plant,  but  with  the  additon  of  two  atoms  of  bromine. 
Why  a  particular  kind  of  a  shellfish  should  have  got 
the  habit  of  extracting  this  rare  element  from  sea 
water  and  stow^ing  it  away  in  this  peculiar  form  is 
**one  of  those  things  no  fellow  can  find  out."  But 
according  to  the  chemist  the  Murex  mollusk  made  a 
mistake  in  hitching  the  bromine  to  the  wrong  carbon  i 
atoms.  He  finds  as  he  would  word  it  that  the  6 : 6'di- 1 
brom  indigo  secreted  by  the  shellfish  is  not  so  good  as  | 
the  5:5'di-brom  indigo  now  manufactured  at  a  cheap! 
rate  and  in  unlimited  quantity.  But  we  must  not  ex- 
pect too  much  of  a  mollusk 's  mind.  In  their  cheapness 
lies  the  offense  of  the  aniline  dyes  in  the  minds  of  some 
people.  Our  modern  aristocrats  would  delight  to  be 
entitled  **porphyrogeniti"  and  to  wear  exclusive  gowns 
of  **  purple  and  scarlet  from  the  isles  of  Elishah''  as 
was  done  in  EzekiePs  time,  but  when  any  shopgirl  or 
sailor  can  wear  the  royal  color  it  spoils  its  beauty  in 
their  eyes.  Applied  science  accomplishes  a  real  de- 
mocracy such  as  legislation  has  ever  failed  to  establish. 

Any  kind  of  dye  found  in  nature  can  be  made  in  the 
laboratory  whenever  its  composition  is  understood  and 
usually  it  can  be  made  cheaper  and  purer  than  it  can 
be  extracted  from  the  plant.  But  to  work  out  a  profit- 
able process  for  making  it  synthetically  is  sometimes  a 
task  requiring  high  skill,  persistent  labor  and  heavj 
expenditure.  One  of  the  latest  and  most  striking  of 
these  achievements  of  synthetic  chemistry  is  the  manu- 
facture of  indigo. 

Indigo  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  fastest  of  the  dye- 
stuffs.    To  see  that  it  is  both  ancient  and  lasting  looL' 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  77 

at  the  unfaded  blue  cloths  that  enwrap  an  Egyptian 
{ mummy.  When  Caesar  conquered  our  British  ances- 
I  tors  he  found  them  tattooed  with  woad,  the  native  in- 
;  digo.  But  the  chief  source  of  indigo  was,  as  its  name 
;  implies,  India.  In  1897  nearly  a  million  acres  in  India 
I  were  growing  the  indigo  plant  and  the  annual  value  of 
I  the  crop  was  $20,000,000.  Then  the  fall  began  and  by 
i  1914  India  was  producing  only  $300,000  worth !  What 
j  had  happened  to  destroy  this  profitable  industry? 
Some  blight  or  insect!  No,  it  was  simply  that  the 
!  Badische  Anilin-und-Soda  Fabrik  had  worked  out  a 
practical  process  for  making  artificial  indigo. 

That  indigo  on  breaking  up  gave  off  aniline  was 
discovered  as  early  as  1840.    In  fact  that  was  how  ani- 
line got  its  name,  for  when  Fritzsche  distilled  indigo 
with  caustic   soda  he   called   the   colorless   distillate 
** aniline,''  from  the  Arabic  name  for  indigo,  **anil" 
or  *  *  al-nil, ' '  that  is,  * '  the  blue-stuff. ' '    But  how  to  re- 
verse the  process  and  get  indigo  from  aniline  puzzled 
I  chemists  for  more  than  forty  years  until  finally  it  was 
1  solved  by  Adolf  von  Baeyer  of  Munich,  who  died  in 
I  1917  at  the  age  of  eighty-four.     He  worked  on  the  prob- 
■  lem  of  the  constitution  of  indigo  for  fifteen  years  and 
discovered  several  ways  of  making  it.    It  is  possible  to 
start  from  benzene,  toluene  or  naphthalene.     The  first 
process  was  the  easiest,  but  if  you  will  refer  to  the 
I  products  of  the  distillation  of  tar  you  will  find  that  the 
amount  of  toluene  produced  is  less  than  the  naphtha- 
lene, which  is  hard  to  dispose  of.     That  is,  if  a  dye  fac- 
tory had  worked  out  a  process  for  making  indigo  from 
,  toluene  it  would  not  be  practicable  because  there  was 
i  not  enough  toluene  produced  to  supply  the  demand  for 


78  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

indigo.  So  the  more  complicated  napthalene  process- 
was  chosen  in  preference  to  the  others  in  order  to  uti- 
lize this  by-product. 

The  Badische  Anilin-und-Soda  Fabrik  spent  $5,000,- 
000  and  seventeen  years  in  chemical  research  before 
they  could  make  indigo,  but  they  gained  a  monopoly 
(or,  to  be  exact,  ninety-six  per  cent.)  of  the  world's 
production.  A  hundred  years  ago  indigo  cost  as  much 
as  $4  a  pound.  In  1914  we  were  paying  fifteen  cents  a 
pound  for  it.  Even  the  pauper  labor  of  India  could  not 
compete  with  the  German  chemists  at  that  price.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century  Germany  was  pay- 
ing more  than  $3,000,000  a  year  for  indigo.  Fourteen 
years  later  Germany  was  selling  indigo  to  the  amount 
of  $12,600,000.  Besides  its  cheapness,  artificial  indigo 
is  preferable  because  it  is  of  uniform  quality  and 
greater  purity.  Vegetable  indigo  contains  from  forty 
to  eighty  per  cent,  of  impurities,  among  them  various 
other  tinctorial  substances.  Artificial  indigo  is  made 
pure  and  of  any  desired  strength,  so  the  dyers  can 
depend  on  it. 

The  value  of  the  aniline  colors  lies  in  their  infinite 
variety.  Some  are  fast,  some  will  fade,  some  will 
stand  wear  and  weather  as  long  as  the  fabric,  some 
will  wash  out  6r  spot.  Dyes  can  be  made  that  will  at- 
tach themselves  to  wool,  to  silk  or  to  cotton,  and  give 
it  any  shade  of  any  color.  The  period  of  discovery  by 
accident  has  long  gone  by.  The  chemist  nowadays  de- 
cides first  just  what  kind  of  a  dye  he  wants,  and  then 
goes  to  work  systematically  to  make  it.  He  begins  by 
drawing  a  diagram  of  the  molecule,  double-linking  ni- 
trogen or  carbon  and  oxygen  atoms  to  give  the  required 


COAL-TAE  COLORS  79 

intensity,  putting  in  acid  or  basic  radicals  to  fasten  it 
to  the  fiber,  shifting  the  color  back  and  forth  along  the 
spectrum  at  will  by  introducing  methyl  groups,  until  he 
gets  it  just  to  his  liking. 

Art  can  go  ahead  of  nature  in  the  dyestuff  business. 
Before  man  found  that  he  could  make  all  the  dyes  he 
wanted  from  the  tar  he  had  been  burning  up  at  home 
he  searched  the  wide  world  over  to  find  colors  by  which 
he  could  make  himself — or  his  wife — ^garments  as  beau- 
tiful as  those  that  arrayed  the  flower,  the  bird  and  the 
fcutterfly.    He  sent  divers  down  into  the  Mediterranean 
Ed  rob  the  murex  of  his  purple.     He  sent  ships  to  the 
new  world  to  get  Brazil  wood  and  to  the  oldest  world 
for  indigo.     He  robbed  the  lady  cochineal  of  her  scar- 
let coat.    Why  these  peculiar  substances  were  formed 
only  by  these  particular  plants,  mussels  and  insects  it 
is  hard  to  understand.    I  don't  know  that  Mrs.  Cacti 
Coccus  derived  any  benefit  from  her  scarlet  uniform 
when  khaki  would  be  safer,  and  I  can 't  imagine  that  to 
m  shellfish  it  was  of  advantage  to  turn  red  as  it  rots 
or  to  an  indigo  plant  that  its  leaves  in  decomposing 
should  turn  blue.    But  anyhow,  it  was  man  that  took 
advantage  of  them  until  he  learned  how  to  make  his 
own  dyestuff s. 

Our  independent  ancestors  got  along  so  far  as  pos- 
sible with  what  grew  in  the  neighborhood.  Sweetapple 
>ark  gave  a  fine  saffron  yellow.  Eibbons  were  given 
the  hue  of  the  rose  by  poke  berry  juice.  The  Confed- 
erates in  their  butternut-colored  uniform  were  almost 
as  invisible  as  if  in  khaki  or  feldgrau.  Madder  was 
3ultivated  in  the  kitchen  garden.  Only  logwood  from 
Jamaica  and  indigo  from  India  had  to  be  imported. 


80  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

That  we  are  not  so  independent  today  is  our  own  fault,, 
for  we  waste  enough  coal  tar  to  supply  ourselves  audi 
other  countries  with  all  the  new  dyes  needed.  It  is 
essentially  a  question  of  economy  and  organi^-ation. 
We  have  forgotten  how  to  economize,  but  we  have 
learned  how  to  organize. 

The  British  Government  gave  the  discoverer  of 
mauve  a  title,  but  it  did  not  give  him  any  support  in 
his  endeavors  to  develop  the  industry,  although  Eng- 
land led  the  world  in  textiles  and  needed  more  dyes 
than  any  other  country.  So  in  1874  Sir  William  Per- 
kin  relinquished  the  attempt  to  manufacture  the  dyes 
he  had  discovered  because,  as  he  said,  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge refused  to  educate  chemists  or  to  carry  on  re- 
search. Their  students,  trained  in  the  classics  for  the 
profession  of  being  a  gentleman,  showed  a  decided 
repugnance  to  the  laboratory  on  account  of  its  bad 
smells.  So  when  Hofmann  went  home  he  virtually 
took  the  infant  industry  along  with  him  to  Germany, 
where  Ph.D.  ^s  were  cheap  and  plentiful  and  not  afraid  1 
of  bad  smells.  There  the  business  throve  amazingly,, 
and  by  1914  the  Germans  were  manufacturing  more 
than  three-fourths  of  all  the  coal-tar  products  of  the 
world  and  supplying  material  for  most  of  the  rest. 
The  British  cursed  the  universities  for  thus  imperil- 
ing the  nation  through  their  narrowness  and  neglect; 
but  this  accusation,  though  natural,  was  not  altogether 
fair,  for  at  least  half  the  blame  should  go  to  the  British 
dyer,  who  did  not  care  where  his  colors  came  from,  so 
long  as  they  were  cheap.  When  finally  the  universities ' 
did  turn  over  a  new  leaf  and  began  to  educate  chemists, 
the  manufacturers  would  not  employ  them.    Before  the 


COAL-TAE  COLORS  81 

war  six  English  factories  producing  dyestuffs  em- 
ployed only  35  chemists  altogether,  while  one  German 
color  works,  the  Hochster  Farbwerke,  employed  307 
expert  chemists  and  74  technologists. 

This'  firm  united  with  the  six  other  leading  dye  com- 
panies of  Germany  on  January  1,  1916,  to  form  a  trust 
to  last  for  fifty  years.  During  this  time  they  will  main- 
tain uniform  prices  and  uniform  wage  scales  and  hours 
of  labor,  and  exchange  patents  and  secrets.  They  will 
divide  the  foreign  business  pro  rata  and  share  the 
profits.  The  German  chemical  works  made  big  profits 
during  the  war,  mostly  from  munitions  and  medicines, 
and  will  be,  through  this  new  combination,  in  a  stronger 
position  than  ever  to  push  the  export  trade. 

As  a  consequence  of  letting  the  dye  business  get  away 
from  her,  England  found  herself  in  a  fix  when  war 
broke  out.  She  did  not  have  dyes  for  her  uniforms 
and  flags,  and  she  did  not  have  drugs  for  her  wounded. 
She  could  not  take  advantage  of  the  blockade  to  capture 
the  German  trade  in  Asia  and  South  America,  because 
she  could  not  color  her  textiles.  A  blue  cotton  dyestuif 
that  sold  before  the  war  at  sixty  cents  a  pound,  brought 
$34  a  pound.  A  bright  pink  rhodamine  formerly 
quoted  at  a  dollar  a  pound  jumped  to  $48.  When  one 
keg  of  dye  ordinarily  worth  $15  was  put  up  at  forced 
auction  sale  in  1915  it  was  knocked  down  at  $1500. 
The  Highlanders  could  not  get  the  colors  for  their  kilts 
until  some  German  dyes  were  smuggled  into  England. 
The  textile  industries  of  Great  Britain,  that  brought  in 
a  billion  dollars  a  year  and  employed  one  and  a  half 
million  workers,  were  crippled  for  lack  of  dyes.  The 
demand  for  high  explosives  from  the  front  could  not  be 


82  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

met  because  these  also  are  largely  coal-tar  products. 
Picric  acid  is  both  a  dye  and  an  explosive.  It  is  made 
from  carbolic  acid  and  the  famous  trinitrotoluene  is 
made  from  toluene,  both  of  which  you  will  find  in  the 
list  of  the  ten  fundamental  ** crudes." 

Both  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  realized 
the  danger  of  allowing  Germany  to  recover  her  for- 
mer monopoly,  and  both  have  shown  a  readiness  to 
cast  overboard  their  traditional  policies  to  meet  this 
emergency.  The  British  Government  has  discovered 
that  a  country  without  a  tariff  is  a  land  without  walls. 
The  American  Government  has  discovered  that  an  in- 
dustry is  not  benefited  by  being  cut  up  into  small  pieces. 
Both  governments  are  now  doing  all  they  can  to  build 
up  big  concerns  and  to  provide  them  with  protection. 
The  British  Government  assisted  in  the  formation  of 
a  national  company  for  the  manufacture  of  synthetic 
dyes  by  taking  one-sixth  of  the  stock  and  providing 
$500,000  for  a  research  laboratory.  But  this  effort  is 
now  reported  to  be  **a  great  failure"  because  the  Gov- 
ernment put  it  in  charge  of  the  politicians  instead  of 
the  chemists. 

The  United  States,  like  England,  had  become  depend- 
ent upon  Germany  for  its  dyestuffs.  We  imported 
nine-tenths  of  what  we  used  and  most  of  those  that  I 
were  produced  here  were  made  from  imported  interme- , 
diates.  When  the  war  broke  out  there  were  only  seven 
firms  and  528  persons  employed  in  the  manufacture  of  j 
dyes  in  the  United  States.  One  of  these,  the  Schoel- 1 
kopf  Aniline  and  Chemical  Works,  of  Buffalo,  deserves  | 
mention,  for  it  had  stuck  it  out  ever  since  1879,  and  in  i 
1914  was  making  106  dyes.    In  June,  1917,  this  firm, 


COAL-TAE  COLORS  83 

with  the  encouragement  of  the  Government  Bureau  of 
Foreign  and  Domestic  Commerce,  joined  with  some  of 
the  other  American  producers  to  form  a  trade  combina- 
tion, the  National  Aniline  and  Chemical  Company. 
The  Du  Pont  Company  also  entered  the  field  on  an 
extensive  scale  and  soon  there  were  118  concerns  en- 
gaged in  it  with  great  profit.  During  the  war  $200,- 
000,000  was  invested  in  the  domestic  dyestuff  industry. 
To  protect  this  industry  Congress  put  on  a  specific  duty 
of  five  cents  a  pound  and  an  ad  valorem  duty  of  30 
per  cent,  on  imported  dyestufPs ;  but  if,  after  five  years, 
American  manufacturers  are  not  producing  60  per  cent. 
in  value  of  the  domestic  consumption,  the  protection  is 
to  be  removed.  For  some  reason,  not  clearly  under- 
stood and  therefore  hotly  discussed.  Congress  at  the 
last  moment  struck  off  the  specific  duty  from  two  of  the 
most  important  of  the  dyestuffs,  indigo  and  alizarin, 
as  well  as  from  all  medicinals  and  flavors. 

The  manufacture  of  dyes  is  not  a  big  business,  but  it 
is  a  strategic  business.  Heligoland  is  not  a  big  island, 
but  England  would  have  been  glad  to  buy  it  back  during 
the  war  at  a  high  price  per  square  yard.  American 
industries  employing  over  two  million  men  and  women 
and  producing  over  three  billion  dollars '  worth  of  prod- 
ucts a  year  are  dependent  upon  dyes.  Chief  of  these  is 
of  course  textiles,  using  more  than  half  the  dyes ;  next 
come  leather,  paper,  paint  and  ink.  We  have  been  im- 
porting more  than  $12,000,000  worth  of  coal-tar  prod- 
ucts a  year,  but  the  cottonseed  oil  we  exported  in  1912 
would  alone  suffice  to  pay  that  bill  twice  over.  But 
although  the  manufacture  of  dyes  cannot  be  called  a  big 
^^^isiness,  in  comparison  with  some  others,  it  is  a  pay- 


84  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRYi 

ing  business  when  well  managed.  The  German  con- 
cerns paid  on  an  average  22  per  cent,  dividends  on  their 
capital  and  sometimes  as  high  as  50  per  cent.  Most  of 
the  standard  dyes  have  been  so  long  in  use  that  the 
patents  are  otf  and  the  processes  are  well  enough 
known.  We  have  the  coal  tar  and  we  have  the  chem- 
ists, so  there  seems  no  good  reason  why  we  should  not 
make  our  own  dyes,  at  least  enough  of  them  so  we  will 
not  be  caught  napping  as  we  were  in  1914.  It  was 
decidedly  humiliating  for  our  Government  to  have  to 
beg  Germany  to  sell  us  enough  colors  to  print  our 
stamps  and  greenbacks  and  then  have  to  beg  Great 
Britain  for  permission  to  bring  them  over  by  Dutch: 
ships. 

The  raw  material  for  the  production  of  coal-tar  prod- 
ucts we  have  in  abundance  if  we  will  only  take  the 
trouble  to  save  it.  In  1914  the  crude  light  oil  collected' 
from  the  coke-ovens  would  have  produced  only  about 
4,500,000  gallons  of  benzol  and  1,500,000  gallons  of  to- 
luol, but  in  1917  this  output  was  raised  to  40,200,000 
gallons  of  benzol  and  10,200,000  of  toluol.  The  toluol 
was  used  mostly  in  the  manufacture  of  trinitrotoluol 
for  use  in  Europe.  When  the  war  broke  out  in  1914  it; 
shut  off  our  supply  of  phenol  (carbolic  acid)  for  which 
we  were  dependent  upon  foreign  sources.  This  threat- 
ened not  only  to  afflict  us  with  headaches  by  depriving 
us  of  aspirin  but  also  to  remove  the  consolation  of 
music,  for  phenol  is  used  in  making  phonograph  rec- 
ords. Mr.  Edison  with  his  accustomed  energy  put  up 
a  factory  within  a  few  weeks  for  the  manufacture  of 
synthetic  phenol.  When  we  entered  the  war  the  need 
for  phenol  became  yet  more  imperative,  for  it  was 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  85 

needed  to  make  picric  acid  for  filling  bombs.  This  de- 
mand was  met,  and  in  1917  there  were  fifteen  new 
plants  turning  out  64,146,499  pounds  of  phenol  valued 
at  $23,719,805. 

Some  of  the  coal-tar  products,  as  we  see,  serve  many 
purposes.  For  instance,  picric  acid  appears  in  three 
places  in  this  book.  It  is  a  high  explosive.  It  is  a 
powerful  and  permanent  yellow  dye  as  any  one  who 
has  touched  it  knows.  Thirdly  it  is  used  as  an  anti- 
septic to  cover  burned  skin.  Other  coal-tar  dyes  are 
used  for  the  same  purpose,  *^ malachite  green,"  ** bril- 
liant green,''  ** crystal  violet,''  ** ethyl  violet"  and 
'*  Victoria  blue,"  so  a  patient  in  a  military  hospital  is 
decorated  like  an  Easter  egg.  During  the  last  five 
years  surgeons  have  unfortunately  had  unprecedented 
opportunities  for  the  study  of  wounds  and  fortunately 
they  have  been  unprecedentedly  successful  in  finding 
improved  methods  of  treating  them.  In  former  wars  a 
serious  wound  meant  usually  death  or  amputation. 
Now  nearly  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  wounded  are  able 
to  continue  in  the  service.  The  reason  for  this  im- 
provement is  that  medicines  are  now  being  made  to 
order  instead  of  being  gathered  **from  China  to  Peru." 
The  old  herb  doctor  picked  up  any  strange  plant  that 
he  could  find  and  tried  it  on  any  sick  man  that  would  let 
him.  This  empirical  method,  though  hard  on  the  pa- 
tients, resulted  in  the  course  of  five  thousand  years  in 
the  discovery  of  a  number  of  useful  remedies.  But  the 
modern  medicine  man  when  he  knows  the  cause  of  the 
disease  is  usually  able  to  devise  ways  of  counteracting 
it  directly.  For  instance,  he  knows,  thanks  to  Pasteur 
and  Metchnikoff,  that  the  cause  of  wound  infection  is 


86  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

the  bacterial  enemies  of  man  which  swarm  by  the  mil- 
lion into  any  breach  in  his  protective  armor,  the  skin. 
Now  when  a  breach  is  made  in  a  line  of  intrenchments 
the  defenders  rush  troops  to  the  threatened  spot  for 
two  purposes,  constructive  and  destructive,  engineers 
and  warriors,  the  former  to  build  up  the  rampart  with 
sandbags,  the  latter  to  kill  the  enemy.  So  when  the 
human  body  is  invaded  the  blood  brings  to  the  breach 
two  kinds  of  defenders.  One  is  the  serum  which  neu- 
tralizes the  bacterial  poison  and  by  coagulating  forms 
a  new  skin  or  scab  over  the  exposed  flesh.  The  other 
is  the  phagocytes  or  white  corpuscles,  the  free  lances 
of  our  corporeal  militia,  which  attack  and  kill  the  in- 
vading bacteria.  The  aim  of  the  physician  then  is  to 
aid  these  defenders  as  much  as  possible  without  inter- 
fering with  them.  Therefore  the  antiseptic  he  is  seek- 
ing is  one  that  will  assist  the  serum  in  protecting  and 
repairing  the  broken  tissues  and  will  kill  the  hostile 
bacteria  without  killing  the  friendly  phagocytes.  Car- 
bolic acid,  the  most  familiar  of  the  coal-tar  antiseptics, 
will  destroy  the  bacteria  when  it  is  diluted  with  250 
parts  of  water,  but  unfortunately  it  puts  a  stop  to  the 
fighting  activities  of  the  phagocytes  when  it  is  only 
half  that  strength,  or  one  to  500,  so  it  cannot  destroy 
the  infection  without  hindering  the  healing. 

In  this  search  for  substances  that  would  attack  a 
specific  disease  germ  one  of  the  leading  investigators 
was  Prof.  Paul  Ehrlich,  a  German  physician  of  the 
Hebrew  race.  He  found  that  the  aniline  dyes  were 
useful  for  staining  slides  under  the  microscope,  for 
they  would  pick  out  particular  cells  and  leave  others 
uncolored  and  from  this  starting  point  he  worked  out 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  87 

organic  and  metallic  compounds  which  would  destroy 
the  bacteria  and  parasites  that  cause  some  of  the  most 
dreadful  of  diseases.  A  year  after  the  war  broke  out 
Professor  Ehrlich  died  while  working  in  his  laboratory 
on  how  to  heal  with  coal-tar  compounds  the  wounds  in- 
flicted by  explosives  from  the  same  source. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  of  the  aniline  antiseptics 
employed  by  Ehrlich  is  flavine  or,  if  the  reader  prefers 
to  call  it  by  its  full  name,  diaminomethylacridinium 
chloride.  Flavine,  as  its  name  implies,  is  a  yellow  dye 
and  will  kill  the  germs  causing  ordinary  abscesses  when 
in  solution  as  dilute  as  one  part  of  the  dye  to  200,000 
parts  of  water,  but  it  does  not  interfere  with  the  bac- 
tericidal action  of  the  white  blood  corpuscles  unless  the 
solution  is  400  times  as  strong  as  this,  that  is  one  part 
in  500.  Unlike  carbolic  acid  and  other  antiseptics  it 
is  said  to  stimulate  the  serum  instead  of  impairing  its 
activity.  Another  antiseptic  of  the  coal-tar  family 
which  has  recently  been  brought  into  use  by  Dr.  Dakin 
of  the  Rockefeller  Institute  is  that  called  by  European 
physicians  chloramine-T  and  by  American  physicians 
chlorazene  and  by  chemists  para-toluene-sodium-sulfo- 
chloramide. 

This  may  serve  to  illustrate  how  a  chemist  is  able  to 
make  such  remedies  as  the  doctor  needs,  instead  of 
depending  upon  the  accidental  by-products  of  plants. 
On  an  earlier  page  I  explained  how  by  starting  with 
the  simplest  of  ring-compounds,  the  benzene  of  coal 
tar,  we  could  get  aniline.  Suppose  we  go  a  step  fur- 
ther and  boil  the  aniline  oil  with  acetic  acid,  which  is 
the  acid  of  vinegar  minus  its  water.  This  easy  proc- 
ess gives  us  acetanilid,  which  when  introduced  into  the 


88  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

market  some  years  ago  under  the  name  of  **antifebrin'' 
made  a  fortune  for  its  makers. 

The  making  of  medicines  from  coal  tar  began  in  1874 
when  Kolbe  made  salicylic  acid  from  carbolic  acid. 
Salicylic  acid  is  a  rheumatism  remedy  and  had  previ- 
ously been  extracted  from  willow  bark.  If  now  we 
treat  salicylic  acid  with  concentrated  acetic  acid  we 
get  *^ aspirin.''  From  aniline  again  are  made  ^*phen- 
acetin,"  **antipyrin''  and  a  lot  of  other  drugs  that  have 
become  altogether  too  popular  as  headache  remedies — 
say  rather  *^ headache  relievers." 

Another  class  of  synthetics  equally  useful  and  like- 
wise abused,  are  the  soporifics,  such  as  *  *  sulphonal, ' ' 
*^ veronal''  and  **medinal."  "When  it  is  not  desired  to 
put  the  patient  to  sleep  but  merely  to  render  insensible 
a  particular  place,  as  when  a  tooth  is  to  be  pulled, 
cocain  may  be  used.  This,  like  alcohol  and  morphine, 
has  proved  a  curse  as  well  as  a  blessing  and  its  sale 
has  had  to  be  restricted  because  of  the  many  victims  to 
the  habit  of  using  this  drug.  Cocain  is  obtained  from 
the  leaves  of  the  South  American  coca  tree,  but  can 
be  made  artificially  from  coal-tar  products.  The  lab- 
oratory is  superior  to  the  forest  because  other  forms 
of  local  anesthetics,  such  as  eucain  and  novocain,  can 
be  made  that  are  better  than  the  natural  alkaloid  be- 
cause more  effective  and  less  poisonous. 

I  must  not  forget  to  mention  another  lot  of  coal-tar 
derivatives  in  which  some  of  my  readers  w^ill  take  a 
personal  interest.  That  is  the  photographic  develop- 
ers. I  am  old  enough  to  remember  when  we  used  to 
develop  our  plates  in  ferrous  sulfate  solution  and  you 
never  saw  nicer  negatives  than  we  got  with  it.    But 


COAL-TAE  COLORS  89 

when  pyrogallic  acid  came  in  we  switched  over  to  that 
even  though  it  did  stain  our  fingers  and  sometimes  our 
plates.  Later  came  a  swarm  of  new  organic  reducing 
agents  under  various  fancy  names,  such  as  metol,  hydro 
(short  for  hydro-quinone)  and  eikongen  (^*the  image- 
maker'')-  Every  fellow  fixed  up  his  own  formula  and 
called  his  fellow-members  of  the  camera  club  fools  for 
not  adopting  it  though  he  secretly  hoped  they  would 
not. 

Under  the  double  stimulus  of  patriotism  and  high 
prices  the  American  drug  and  dyestuff  industry  devel- 
oped rapidly.  In  1917  about  as  many  pounds  of  dyes 
were  manufactured  in  America  as  were  imported  in 
1913  and  our  exports  of  American-made  dyes  exceeded 
in  value  our  hnports  before  the  war.  In  1914  the  out- 
put of  American  dyes  was  valued  at  $2,500,000.  In  1917 
it  amounted  to  over  $57,000,000.  This  does  not  mean 
that  the  problem  was  solved,  for  the  home  products 
were  not  equal  in  variety  and  sometimes  not  in  quality 
to  those  made  in  Germany.  Many  valuable  dyes  were 
lacking  and  the  cost  was  of  course  much  higher. 
Whether  the  American  industry  can  compete  with  the 
foreign  in  an  open  market  and  on  equal  terms  is  im- 
possible to  say  because  such  conditions  did  not  prevail 
before  the  war  and  they  are  not  going  to  prevail  in  the 
future.  Formerly  the  large  German  cartels  through 
their  agents  and  branches  in  this  country  kept  the  busi- 
ness in  their  own  hands  and  now  the  American  manu- 
facturers are  determined  to  maintain  the  independence 
they  have  acquired.  They  will  not  depend  hereafter 
upon  the  tariff  to  cut  off  competition  but  have  adopted 
more  effective  measures.    The  4500  German  chemical 


90  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

patents  that  had  been  seized  by  the  Alien  Property 
Custodian  were  sold  by  him  for  $250,000  to  the  Chemi- 
cal Foundation,  an  association  of  American  manufac- 
turers organized  **for  the  Americanization  of  such  in- 
stitutions as  may  be  affected  thereby,  for  the  exclusion 
or  elimination  of  alien  interests  hostile  or  detrimental 
to  said  industries  and  for  the  advancement  of  chemical 
and  allied  science  and  industry  in  the  United  States.'' 
The  Foundation  has  a  large  fighting  fund  so  that  it 
*^may  be  able  to  commence  immediately  and  prosecute 
with  the  utmost  vigor  infringement  proceedings  when- 
ever the  first  German  attempt  shall  hereafter  be  made 
to  import  into  this  country." 

So  much  mystery  has  been  made  of  the  achievements 
of  German  chemists — as  though  the  Teutonic  brain  had 
a  special  lobe  for  that  faculty,  lacking  in  other  crani- 
ums — that  I  want  to  quote  what  Dr.  Hesse  says  about 
his  first  impressions  of  a  German  laboratory  of  indus- 
trial research: 

Directly  after  graduating  from  the  University  of  Chicago 
in  1896, 1  entered  the  employ  of  the  largest  coal-tar  dye  works 
in  the  world  at  its  plant  in  Germany  and  indeed  in  one  of  its 
research  laboratories.  This  was  my  first  trip  outside  the 
United  States  and  it  was,  of  course,  an  event  of  the  first  mag- 
nitude for  me  to  be  in  Europe,  and,  as  a  chemist,  to  be  in 
Germany,  in  a  German  coal-tar  dye  plant,  and  to  cap  it  all  in 
its  research  laboratory — a  real  sanctum  sanctorum  for  chem- 
ists. In  a  short  time  the  daily  routine  wore  the  novelty  off 
my  experience  and  I  then  settled  down  to  calm  analysis  and 
dispassionate  appraisal  of  my  surroundings  and  to  compare 
what  was  actually  before  and  around  me  with  my  expectations. 


COAL-TAR  COLORS  91 

I  found  that  the  general  laboratory  equipment  was  no  better 
than  what  I  had  been  accustomed  to;  that  my  colleagues  had 
no  better  fundamental  training  than  I  had  enjoyed  nor  any 
better  fact — or  manipulative — equipment  than  I;  that  those 
in  charge  of  the  work  had  no  better  general  intellectual  equip- 
ment nor  any  more  native  ability  than  had  my  instructors ;  in 
short,  there  was  nothing  new  about  it  all,  nothing  that  we  did 
not  have  back  home,  nothing — except  the  specific  problems 
that  were  engaging  their  attention,  and  the  special  opportuni- 
ties of  attacking  them.  Those  problems  were  of  no  higher 
order  of  complexity  than  those  I  had  been  accustomed  to  for 
years,  in  fact,  most  of  them  were  not  very  complex  from  a 
purely  intellectual  viewpoint.  There  was  nothing  inherently 
uncanny,  magical  or  wizardly  about  their  occupation  what- 
ever. It  was  nothing  but  plain  hard  work  and  keeping  ever- 
lastingly at  it.  Now,  what  was  the  actual  thing  behind  that 
chemical  laboratory  that  we  did  not  have  at  home?  It  was 
money,  willing  to  back  such  activity,  convinced  that  in  the 
final  outcome,  a  profit  would  be  made ;  money,  willing  to  take 
university  graduates  expecting  from  them  no  special  knowl- 
edge other  than  a  good  and  thorough  grounding  in  scientific 
research  and  provide  them  with  opportunity  to  become  special- 
ists suited  to  the  factory  ^s  needs. 

It  is  evidently  not  impossible  to  make  the  United 
States  self-suflScient  in  the  matter  of  coal-tar  products. 
We  Ve  got  the  tar ;  we  've  got  the  men ;  we  've  got  the 
money,  too.  Whether  such  a  policy  would  pay  us  in 
the  long  run  or  whether  it  is  necessary  as  a  measure  of 
military  or  commercial  self-defense  is  another  question 
that  cannot  here  be  decided.  But  whatever  share  we 
may  have  in  it  the  coal-tar  industry  has  increased  the 
economy  of  civilization  and  added  to  the  wealth  of  the 


92  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

world  by  showing  how  a  waste  by-product  could  be 
utilized  for  making  new  dyes  and  valuable  medicines, 
a  better  use  for  tar  than  as  fuel  for  political  bonfires 
and  as  clothing  for  the  nakedness  of  social  outcasts. 


SYNTHETIC  PEEFUMES  AND  FLAVORS 

The  primitive  man  got  his  living  out  of  such  wild 
plants  and  animals  as  he  could  find.  Next  he,  or  more 
likely  his  wife,  began  to  cultivate  the  plants  and  tame 
the  animals  so  as  to  insure  a  constant  supply.  This 
was  the  first  step  toward  civilization,  for  when  men  had 
to  settle  down  in  a  community  (civitas)  they  had  to 
ameliorate  their  manners  and  make  laws  protecting 
land  and  property.  In  this  settled  and  orderly  life 
the  plants  and  animals  improved  as  well  as  man  and 
returned  a  hundredfold  for  the  pains  that  their  master 
had  taken  in  their  training.  But  still  man  was  de- 
pendent upon  the  chance  bounties  of  nature.  He  could 
select,  but  he  could  not  invent.  He  could  cultivate,  but 
he  could  not  create.  If  he  wanted  sugar  he  had  to 
send  to  the  West  Indies.  If  he  wanted  spices  he  had 
to  send  to  the  East  Indies.  If  he  wanted  indigo  he 
had  to  send  to  India.  If  he  wanted  a  febrifuge  he  had 
to  send  to  Peru.  If  he  wanted  a  fertilizer  he  had  to 
send  to  Chile.  If  he  wanted  rubber  he  had  to  send 
to  the  Congo.  If  he  wanted  rubies  he  had  to  send  to 
Mandalay.  If  he  wanted  otto  of  roses  he  had  to  send 
to  Turkey.  Man  was  not  yet  master  of  his  envi- 
ronment. 

This  period  of  cultivation,  the  second  stage  of  civil- 
ization, began  before  the  dawn  of  history  and  lasted 

93 


94  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

until  recent  times.  We  might  almost  say  up  to  the 
twentieth  century,  for  it  was  not  until  the  fundamental 
laws  of  heredity  were  discovered  that  man  could  origi- 
nate new  species  of  plants  and  animals  according  to  a 
predetermined  plan  by  combining  such  characteristics 
as  he  desired  to  perpetuate.  And  it  was  not  until  the 
fundamental  laws  of  chemistry  were  discovered  that 
man  could  originate  new  compounds  more  suitable  to 
his  purpose  than  any  to  be  found  in  nature.  Since  the 
progress  of  mankind  is  continuous  it  is  impossible  to 
draw  a  date  line,  unless  a  very  jagged  one,  along  the 
frontier  of  human  culture,  but  it  is  evident  that  we  are 
just  entering  upon  the  third  era  of  evolution  in  which 
man  will  make  what  he  needs  instead  of  trying  to  find 
it  somewhere.  The  new  epoch  has  hardly  dawned,  yet 
already  a  man  may  stay  at  home  in  New  York  or  Lon- 
don and  make  his  own  rubber  and  rubies,  his  own  in- 
digo and  otto  of  roses.  More  than  this,  he  can  make 
gems  and  colors  and  perfumes  that  never  existed  since 
time  began.  The  man  of  science  has  signed  a  declara- 
tion of  independence  of  the  lower  world  and  we  are 
now  in  the  midst  of  the  revolution. 

Our  eyes  are  dazzled  by  the  dawn  of  the  new  era. 
We  know  what  the  hunter  and  the  horticulturist  have 
already  done  for  man,  but  we  cannot  imagine  what  the 
chemist  can  do.  If  we  look  ahead  through  the  eyes  of 
one  of  the  greatest  of  French  chemists,  Berthelot,  this 
is  what  we  shall  see : 

The  problem  of  food  is  a  chemical  problem.  Whenever 
energy  can  be  obtained  economically  we  can  begin  to  make  all 
kinds  of  aliment,  with  carbon  borrowed  from  carbonic  acid, 
hydrogen  taken  from  the  water  and  oxygen  and  nitrogen 


SYNTHETIC  PEEFUMES  AND  FLAVOES  95 

drawn  from  the  air.  .  .  .  The  day  will  come  when  each  per- 
son will  carry  for  his  nourishment  his  little  nitrogenous  tablet, 
his  pat  of  fatty  matter,  his  package  of  starch  or  sugar,  his 
vial  of  aromatic  spices  suited  to  his  personal  taste ;  all  manu- 
factured economically  and  in  unlimited  quantities;  all  inde- 
pendent of  irregular  seasons,  drought  and  rain,  of  the  heat 
that  withers  the  plant  and  of  the  frost  that  blights  the  fruit ; 
all  free  from  pathogenic  microbes,  the  origin  of  epidemics  and 
the  enemies  of  human  life.  On  that  day  chemistry  will  have 
accomplished  a  world-wide  revolution  that  cannot  be  esti- 
mated. There  will  no  longer  be  hills  covered  with  vineyards 
and  fields  filled  with  cattle.  Man  will  gain  in  gentleness  and 
morality  because  he  will  cease  to  live  by  the  carnage  and  de- 
struction of  living  creatures.  .  .  .  The  earth  will  be  covered 
with  grass,  flowers  and  woods  and  in  it  the  human  race  will 
dwell  in  the  abundance  and  joy  of  the  legendary  age  of  gold 
— provided  that  a  spiritual  chemistry  has  been  discovered 
that  changes  the  nature  of  man  as  profoundly  as  our  chemis- 
try transforms  material  nature. 

But  this  is  looking  so  far  into  the  future  that  we  can 
trust  no  man's  eyesight,  not  even  Berthelot's.  There 
is  apparently  no  impossibility  about  the  manufacture 
of  synthetic  food,  but  at  present  there  is  no  apparent 
probability  of  it.  There  is  no  likelihood  that  the  labor- 
atory will  ever  rival  the  wheat  field.  The  cornstalk 
will  always  be  able  to  work  cheaper  than  the  chemist  in 
the  manufacture  of  starch.  But  in  rarer  and  choicer 
products  of  nature  the  chemist  has  proved  his  ability 
to  compete  and  even  to  excel. 

What  have  been  from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  rise 
of  synthetic  chemistry  the  most  costly  products  of  na- 
ture? What  could  tempt  a  merchant  to  brave  the 
perils  of  a  caravan  journey  over  the  deserts  of  Asia 


96  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

beset  with  Arab  robbers?  What  induced  the  Portu- 
guese and  Spanish  mariners  to  risk  their  frail  barks 
on  perilous  waters  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  or  the 
Horn?  The  chief  prizes  were  perfumes,  spices,  drugs 
and  gems.  And  why  these  rather  than  what  now  con- 
stitutes the  bulk  of  oversea  and  overland  commerce? 
Because  they  were  precious,  portable  and  imperishable. 
If  the  merchant  got  back  safe  after  a  year  or  two  with 
a  little  flask  of  otto  of  roses,  a  package  of  camphor  and 
a  few  pearls  concealed  in  his  garments  his  fortune  was 
made.  If  a  single  ship  of  the  argos}^  sent  out  from 
Lisbon  came  back  with  a  load  of  sandalwood,  indigo  or 
nutmeg  it  was  regarded  as  a  successful  venture.  You 
know  from  reading  the  Bible,  or  if  not  that,  from  your 
reading  of  Arabian  Nights,  that  a  few  grains  of  frank- 
incense or  a  few  drops  of  perfumed  oil  were  regarded 
as  gifts  worthy  the  acceptance  of  a  king  or  a  god. 
These  products  of  the  Orient  were  equally  in  demand 
by  the  toilet  and  the  temple.  The  unctorium  was  an 
adjunct  of  the  Roman  bathroom.  Kings  had  to  be 
greased  and  fumigated  before  they  were  thought  fit  to 
sit  upon  a  throne.  There  was  a  theory,  not  yet  alto- 
gether extinct,  that  medicines  brought  from  a  distance 
were  most  efficacious,  especially  if,  besides  being  expen- 
sive, they  tasted  bad  like  myrrh  or  smelled  bad  like  asa- 
fetida.  And  if  these  failed  to  save  the  princely  patient 
he  was  embalmed  in  aromatics  or,  as  we  now  call  them, 
antiseptics  of  the  benzene  series. 

Today,  as  always,  men  are  willing  to  pay  high  for 
the  titillation  of  the  senses  of  smell  and  taste.  The 
African  savage  will  trade  off  an  ivory  tusk  for  a  piece 
of  soap  reeking  with  synthetic  musk.    The  clubmao 


SYNTHETIC  PERFUMES  AND  FLAVORS   97 

will  pay  $10  for  a  bottle  of  wine  which  consists  mostly 
of  water  with  about  ten  per  cent,  of  alcohol,  worth  a 
cent  or  two,  but  contains  an  unweighable  amount  of  the 
*'bouquef  that  can  only  be  produced  on  the  sunny 
slopes  of  Champagne  or  in  the  valley  of  the  Rhine. 
But  very  likely  the  reader  is  quite  as  extravagant,  for 
when  one  buys  the  natural  violet  perfumery  he  is  pay- 
ing at  the  rate  of  more  than  $10,000  a  pound  for  the 
odoriferous  oil  it  contains ;  the  rest  is  mere  water  and 
alcohol.  But  you  would  not  want  the  pure  undiluted 
oil  if  you  could  get  it,  for  it  is  unendurable.  A  single 
whiff  of  it  paralyzes  your  sense  of  smell  for  a  time  just 
as  a  loud  noise  deafens  you. 

Of  the  five  senses,  three  are  physical  and  two  chemi- 
cal. By  touch  we  discern  pressures  and  surface  tex- 
tures. By  hearing  we  receive  impressions  of  certain 
air  waves  and  by  sight  of  certain  ether  waves.  But 
smell  and  taste  lead  us  to  the  heart  of  the  molecule  and 
enable  us  to  tell  how  the  atoms  are  put  together. 
These  twin  senses  stand  like  sentries  at  the  portals  of 
the  body,  where  they  closely  scrutinize  everything  that 
enters.  Sounds  and  sights  may  be  disagreeable,  but 
they  are  never  fatal.  A  man  can  live  in  a  boiler  fac- 
tory or  in  a  cubist  art  gallery,  but  he  cannot  live  in  a 
room  containing  hydrogen  sulfide.  Since  it  is  more 
important  to  be  warned  of  danger  than  guided  to  de- 
lights our  senses  are  made  more  sensitive  to  pain  than 
pleasure.  We  can  detect  by  the  smell  one  two-millionth 
of  a  milligram  of  oil  of  roses  or  musk,  but  we  can  de- 
tect one  two-billionth  of  a  milligram  of  mercaptan, 
which  is  the  vilest  smelling  compound  that  man  has  so 
far  invented.    If  you  do  not  know  how  much  a  miUi- 


98  CREATWE  CHEMISTRY 

gram  is  consider  a  drop  picked  up  by  the  point  of  a 
needle  and  imagine  that  divided  into  two  billion  parts. 
Also  try  to  estimate  the  weight  of  the  odorous  particles 
that  guide  a  dog  to  the  fox  or  warn  a  deer  of  the  pres- 
ence of  man.  The  unaided  nostril  can  rival  the  spec- 
troscope in  the  detection  and  analysis  of  unweighable 
amounts  of  matter. 

What  we  call  flavor  or  savor  is  a  joint  effect  of  taste 
and  odor  in  which  the  latter  predominates.  There  are 
only  four  tastes  of  importance,  acid,  alkaline,  bitter  and 
sweet.  The  acid,  or  sour  taste,  is  the  perception  of 
hydrogen  atoms  charged  with  positive  electricity.  The 
alkaline,  or  soapy  taste,  is  the  perception  of  hydroxyl 
radicles  charged  with  negative  electricity.  The  bitter 
and  sweet  tastes  and  all  the  odors  depend  upon  the 
chemical  constitution  of  the  compound,  but  the  laws  of 
the  relation  have  not  yet  been  worked  out.  Since  these 
sense  organs,  the  taste  and  smell  buds,  are  sunk  in  the 
moist  mucous  membrane  they  can  only  be  touched  by 
substances  soluble  in  water,  and  to  reach  the  sense  of 
smell  they  must  also  be  volatile  so  as  to  be  diffused  in 
the  air  inhaled  by  the  nose.  The  **  taste '^  of  food  is 
mostly  due  to  the  volatile  odors  of  it  that  creep  up  the 
back-stairs  into  the  olfactory  chamber. 

A  chemist  given  an  unknown  substance  would  have  to 
make  an  elementary  analysis  and  some  tedious  tests 
to  determine  whether  it  contained  methyl  or  ethyl 
groups,  whether  it  was  an  aldehyde  or  an  ester,  whether 
the  carbon  atoms  were  singly  or  doubly  linked  and 
whether  it  was  an  open  chain  or  closed.  But  let  him 
get  a  whiff  of  it  and  he  can  give  instantly  a  pretty 
shrewd  guess  as  to  these  points.    His  nose  knows. 


SYNTHETIC  PEKFUMES  AND  FLAVOES  99 

Although  the  chemist  does  not  yet  know  enough  to 
tell  for  certain  from  looking  at  the  structural  formula 
what  sort  of  odor  the  compound  would  have  or  whether 
it  would  have  any,  yet  we  can  divide  odoriferous  sub- 
stances into  classes  according  to  their  constitution. 
What  are  commonly  known  as  *  ^fruity"  odors  belong 
mostly  to  what  the  chemist  calls  the  fatty  or  aliphatic 
series.  For  instance,  we  may  have  in  a  ripe  fruit  an 
alcohol  (say  ethyl  or  common  alcohol)  and  an  acid  (say 
acetic  or  vinegar  )  and  a  combination  of  these,  the  ester 
or  organic  salt  (in  this  case  ethyl  acetate),  which  is 
more  odorous  than  either  of  its  components.  These 
esters  of  the  fatty  acids  give  the  characteristic  savor  to 
many  of  our  favorite  fruits,  candies  and  beverages. 
The  pear  flavor,  amyl  acetate,  is  made  from  acetic  acid 
and  amyl  alcohol — though  amyl  alcohol  (fusel  oil)  has 
a  detestable  smell.  Pineapple  is  ethyl  butyrate — but 
the  acid  part  of  it  (butyric  acid)  is  what  gives  Lim- 
burger  cheese  its  aroma.  These  essential  oils  are 
easily  made  in  the  laboratory,  but  cannot  be  extracted 
from  the  fruit  for  separate  use. 

If  the  carbon  chain  contains  one  or  more  double  link- 
ages we  get  the  ** flowery''  perfumes.  For  instance, 
here  is  the  symbol  of  geraniol,  the  chief  ingredient  of 
otto  of  roses: 

(CH3)2C  =  CHCHjCHjCCCHa),  =  CHCHoOH 

The  rose  would  smell  as  sweet  under  another  name, 
but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  it  would  stand  being 
called  by  the  name  of  dimethyl-2-6-octadiene-2-6-ol-8. 
Geraniol  by  oxidation  goes  into  the  aldehyde,  citral, 
which  occurs  in  lemons,  oranges,  and  verbena  flowers. 


100  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

Another  compound  of  this  group,  linalool,  is  found  in 
lavender,  bergamot  and  many  flowers. 

Geraniol,  as  you  would  see  if  you  drew  up  its  struc- 
tural formula  in  the  way  I  described  in  the  last  chapter, 
contains  a  chain  of  six  carbon  atoms,  that  is,  the  same 
number  as  make  a  benzene  ring.  Now  if  we  shake  up 
geraniol  and  other  compounds  of  this  group  (the  diole- 
fines)  with  diluted  sulfuric  acid  the  carbon  chain  hooks 
up  to  form  a  benzene  ring,  but  with  the  other  carbon 
atoms  stretched  across  it;  rather  too  complicated  to 
depict  here.  These  ** bridged  rings''  of  the  formula 
CgHg,  or  some  multiple  of  that,  constitute  the  impor- 
tant group  of  the  terpenes  which  occur  in  turpentine 
and  such  wild  and  woodsy  things  as  sage,  lavender, 
caraway,  pine  needles  and  eucalyptus.  Going  further 
in  this  direction  we  are  led  into  the  realm  of  the  heavy 
oriental  odors,  patchouli,  sandalwood,  cedar,  cubebs, 
ginger  and  camphor.  Camphor  can  now  be  made  di- 
rectly from  turpentine  so  we  may  be  independent  of 
Formosa  and  Borneo. 

When  we  have  a  six  carbon  ring  without  double  Unk- 
ings (cyclo-aliphatic)  or  with  one  or  two  such,  we  get 
soft  and  delicate  perfumes  like  the  violet  (ionone  and 
irone).  But  when  these  pass  into  the  benzene  ring 
with  its  three  double  linkages  the  odor  becomes  more 
powerful  and  so  characteristic  that  the  name  **  aro- 
matic compound"  has  been  extended  to  the  entire  class 
of  benzene  derivatives,  although  many  of  them  are 
odorless.  The  essential  oils  of  jasmine,  orange  blos- 
soms, musk,  heliotrope,  tuberose,  ylang  ylang,  etc.,  con- 
sist mostly  of  this  class  and  can  be  made  from  the  com- 
mon source  of  aromatic  compounds,  coal  tar. 


I 


SYNTHETIC  PEEFUMES  AND  FLAVORS  101 

The  synthetic  flavors  and  perfumes  are  made  in  the 
same  way  as  the  dyes  by  starting  with  some  coal-tar 
product  or  other  crude  material  and  building  up  the 
molecule  to  the  desired  complexity.  For  instance,  let 
us  start  with  phenol,  the  ill-smelling  and  poisonous 
carbolic  acid  of  disagreeable  associations  and  evil 
fame.  Treat  this  to  soda-water  and  it  is  transformed 
into  salicylic  acid,  p.  white  odorless  powder,  used  as  a 
preservative  and  as  a  rheumatism  remedy.  Add  to 
this  methyl  alcohol  which  is  obtained  by  the  destructive 
distillation  of  wood  and  is  much  more  poisonous  than 
ordinary  ethyl  alcohol.  The  alcohol  and  the  acid 
heated  together  will  unite  with  the  aid  of  a  little  sul- 
furic acid  and  we  get  what  the  chemist  calls  methyl 
salicylate  and  other  people  call  oil  of  wintergreen,  the 
same  as  is  found  in  wintergreen  berries  and  birch  bark. 
We  have  inherited  a  taste  for  this  from  our  pioneer 
ancestors  and  we  use  it  extensively  to  flavor  our  soft 
drinks,  gum,  tooth  paste  and  candy,  but  the  Europeans 
have  not  yet  found  out  how  nice  it  is. 

But,  starting  with  phenol  again,  let  us  heat  it  with 
caustic  alkali  and  chloroform.  This  gives  us  two  new 
compounds  of  the  same  composition,  but  differing  a 
little  in  the  order  of  the  atoms.  If  you  refer  back  to 
the  diagram  of  the  benzene  ring  which  I  gave  in  the 
last  chapter,  you  will  see  that  there  are  six  hydrogen 
atoms  attached  to  it.  Now  any  or  all  these  hydrogen 
atoms  may  be  replaced  by  other  elements  or  groups  and 
what  the  product  is  depends  not  only  on  what  the  new 
elements  are,  but  where  they  are  put.  It  is  like  spell- 
ing words.  The  three  letters  t,  r  and  a  mean  very  dif- 
ferent things  according  to  whether  they  are  put  to- 


102  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

gether  as  art,  tar  or  rat.  Or,  to  take  a  more  apposite 
illustration,  every  hostess  knows  that  the  success  of  her 
dinner  depends  upon  how  she  seats  her  guests  around 
the  table.  So  in  the  case  of  aromatic  compounds,  a 
little  difference  in  the  seating  arrangement  around  the 
benzene  ring  changes  the  character.  The  two  deriva- 
tives of  phenol,  which  we  are  now  considering,  have 
two  substituting  groups.  One  is  — 0 — H  (called  the 
hydroxyl  group).  The  other  is  — CHO  (called  the  al- 
dehyde group).  If  these  are  opposite  (called  the  para 
position)  we  have  an  odorless  white  solid.  If  they  are, 
side  by  side  (called  the  ortho  position)  we  have  an  oil 
with  the  odor  of  meadowsweet.  Treating  the  odorless 
solid  with  methyl  alcohol  we  get  audepine  (or  anisic 
aldehyde)  which  is  the  perfume  of  hawthorn  blossoms. 
But  treating  the  other  of  the  twin  products,  the  fra- 
grant oil,  with  dry  acetic  acid  (*^Perkin's  reaction'') 
we  get  cumarin,  which  is  the  perfume  part  of  the  tonka 
or  tonquin  beans  that  our  forefathers  used  to  carry  in 
their  snuff  boxes.  One  ounce  of  cumarin  is  equal  to 
four  pounds  of  tonka  beans.  It  smells  sufficiently  like 
vanilla  to  be  used  as  a  substitute  for  it  in  cheap  ex- 
tracts. In  perfumery  it  is  known  as  *  *  new  mown  hay. ' ' 
You  may  remember  what  I  said  on  a  former  page 
about  the  career  of  William  Henry  Perkin,  the  boy 
who  loved  chemistry  better  than  eating,  and  how  he 
discovered  the  coal-tar  dyes.  Well,  it  is  also  to  his 
ingenious  mind  that  we  owe  the  starting  of  the  coal- 
tar  perfume  business  which  has  had  almost  as  impor- 
tant a  development.  Perkin  made  cumarin  in  1868, 
but  this,  like  the  dye  industry,  escaped  from  English 
hands  and  flew  over  the  North  Sea.    Before  the  war 


SYNTHETIC  PERFUMES  AND  FLAVORS  103 

Germany  was  exporting  $1,500,000  worth  of  synthetic 
perfumes  a  year.  Part  of  these  went  to  France,  where 
they  were  mixed  and  put  up  in  fancy  bottles  with 
French  names  and  sold  to  Americans  at  fancy  prices. 

The  real  vanilla  flavor,  vanillin,  was  made  by  Tie- 
mann  in  1874.  At  first  it  sold  for  nearly  $800  a  pound, 
but  now  it  may  be  had  for  $10.  How  extensively  it  is 
now  used  in  chocolate,  ice  cream,  soda  water,  cakes  and 
the  like  we  all  know.  It  should  be  noted  that  cumarin 
and  vanillin,  however  they  may  be  made,  are  not  imi- 
tations, but  identical  with  the  chief  constituent  of  the 
tonka  and  vanilla  beans  and,  of  course,  are  equally 
wholesome  or  harmless.  But  the  nice  palate  can  dis- 
tinguish a  richer  flavor  in  the  natural  extracts,  for 
they  contain  small  quantities  of  other  savory  ingredi- 
ents. 

A  true  perfume  consists  of  a  large  number  of  odorif- 
erous chemical  compounds  mixed  in  such  proportions 
as  to  produce  a  single  harmonious  effect  upon  the  sense 
of  smell.  In  a  fine,  brand  of  perfume  may  be  com- 
pounded a  dozen  or  twenty  different  ingredients  and 
these,  if  they  are  natural  essences,  are  complex  mix- 
tures of  a  dozen  or  so  distinct  substances.  Perfumery 
is  one  of  the  fine  arts.  The  perfumer,  like  the  orches- 
tra leader,  must  know  how  to  combine  and  coordinate 
his  instruments  to  produce  the  desired  sensation.  A 
Wagnerian  opera  requires  103  musicians.  A  Strauss 
opera  requires  112.  Now  if  the  concert  manager  wants 
to  economize  he  will  insist  upon  cutting  down  on  the 
most  expensive  musicians  and  dropping  out  some  of 
the  others,  say,  the  supernumerary  violinists  and  the 
man  who  blows  a  single  blast  or  tinkles  a  triangle  once 


104  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

in  the  course  of  the  evening.  Only  the  trained  ear  will 
detect  the  difference  and  the  manager  can  make  more 
money. 

Suppose  our  mercenary  impresario  were  unable  to 
get  into  the  concert  hall  of  his  famous  rival.  He  would 
then  listen  outside  the  window  and  analyze  the  sound 
in  this  fashion:  *^ Fifty  per  cent,  of  the  sound  is  made 
by  the  tuba,  20  per  cent,  by  the  bass  drum,  15  per  cent, 
by  the  'cello  and  10  per  cent,  by  the  clarinet.  There  are 
some  other  instruments,  but  they  are  not  loud  and  I 
guess  if  we  can  leave  them  out  nobody  will  know  the 
difference.''  So  he  makes  up  his  orchestra  out  of 
these  four  alone  and  many  people  do  not  know  the 
difference. 

The  cheap  perfumer  goes  about  it  in  the  same  way. 
He  analyzes,  for  instance,  the  otto  or  oil  of  roses  which 
cost  during  the  war  $400  a  pound — if  you  could  get  it 
at  any  price — and  he  finds  that  the  chief  ingredient  is 
geraniol,  costing  only  $5,  and  next  is  citronelol,  costing 
$20;  then  comes  nerol  and  others.  So  he  makes  up  a 
cheap  brand  of  perfumery  out  of  three  or  four  such 
compounds.  But  the  genuine  oil  of  roses,  like  other 
natural  essences,  contains  a  dozen  or  more  constituents 
and  to  leave  many  of  them  out  is  like  reducing  an  or- 
chestra to  a  few  loud-sounding  instruments  or  a  paint- 
ing to  a  three-color  print.  A  few  years  ago  an  attempt 
was  made  to  make  music  electrically  by  producing 
separately  each  kind  of  sound  vibration  contained  in 
the  instruments  imitated.  Theoretically  that  seems 
easy,  but  practically  the  tone  was  not  satisfactory  be- 
cause the  tones  and  overtones  of  a  full  orchestra  or 
even  of  a  single  violin  are  too  numerous  and  complex 


SYNTHETIC  PERFUMES  AND  FLAVOES  105 

to  be  reproduced  individually.  So  the  synthetic  per- 
fumes have  not  driven  out  the  natural  perfumes,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  have  aided  and  stimulated  the  growth 
of  flowers  for  essences.  The  otto  or  attar  of  roses,  fa- 
vorite of  the  Persian  monarchs  and  romances,  has  in 
recent  years  come  chiefly  from  Bulgaria.  But  wars  are 
not  made  with  rosewater  and  the  Bulgars  for  the  last 
five  years  have  been  engaged  in  other  business  than 
cultivating  their  own  gardens.  The  alembic  or  still 
was  invented  by  the  Arabian  alchemists  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  the  essential  oil  or  attar  of  roses.  But 
distillation,  even  with  the  aid  of  steam,  is  not  alto- 
gether satisfactory.  For  instance,  the  distilled  rose  oil 
contains  anywhere  from  10  to  74  per  cent,  of  a  paraffin 
wax  (stearopten)  that  is  odorless  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  phenyl-ethyl  alcohol,  which  is  an  important  con- 
stituent of  the  scent  of  roses,  is  broken  up  in  the  proc- 
ess of  distillation.  So  the  perfumer  can  improve  on 
the  natural  or  rather  the  distilled  oil  by  leaving  out 
part  of  the  paraffin  and  adding  the  missing  alcohol. 
Even  the  imported  article  taken  direct  from  the  still  is 
not  always  genuine,  for  the  wily  Bulgar  sometimes  *  in- 
creases the  yield"  by  sprinkling  his  roses  in  the  vat 
with  synthetic  geraniol  just  as  the  wily  Italian  pours  a 
barrel  of  American  cottonseed  oil  over  his  olives  in  the 
press. 

Another  method  of  extracting  the  scent  of  flowers  is 
by  enfleurage,  which  takes  advantage  of  the  tendency 
of  fats  to  absorb  odors.  You  know  how  butter  set  be- 
side fish  in  the  ice  box  will  get  a  fishy  flavor.  In  en- 
fleurage  moist  air  is  carried  up  a  tower  passing  alter- 
nately over  trays  of  fresh  flowers,  say  violets,  and  over 


106  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

glass  plates  covered  with  a  thin  layer  of  lard.  The 
perfumed  lard  may  then  be  used  as  a  pomade  or  the 
perfume  may  be  extracted  by  alcohol. 

But  many  sweet  flowers  do  not  readily  yield  an  essen- 
tial oil,  so  in  such  oases  we  have  to  rely  altogether  upon 
more  or  less  successful  substitutes.  For  instance,  the 
perfumes  sold  under  the  names  of  ** heliotrope, '^  *^lily 
of  the  valley,'^  ** lilac,''  ** cyclamen,''  *^ honeysuckle," 
** sweet  pea,"  *^ arbutus,"  **mayflower"  and  ** mag- 
nolia" are  not  produced  from  these  flowers  but  are 
simply  imitations  made  from  other  essences,  synthetic 
or  natural.  Among  the  ** thousand  flowers"  that  con- 
tribute to  the  *  *  Eau  de  Mille  Fleurs ' '  are  the  civet  cat, 
the  musk  deer  and  the  sperm  whale.  Some  of  the  pub- 
lished formulas  for  *^ Jockey  Club"  call  for  civet  or 
ambergris  and  those  of  ** Lavender  Water"  for  musk 
and  civet.  The  less  said  about  the  origin  of  these 
three  animal  perfumes  the  better.  Fortunately  they 
are  becoming  too  expensive  to  use  and  are  being  dis- 
placed by  synthetic  products  more  agreeable  to  a  re- 
fined imagination.  The  musk  deer  may  now  be  saved 
from  extinction  since  we  can  make  tri-nitro-butyl- 
xylene  from  coal  tar.  This  synthetic  musk  passes  mus- 
ter to  human  nostrils,  but  a  cat  will  turn  up  her  nose  at 
it.  The  synthetic  musk  is  not  only  much  cheaper  than 
the  natural,  but  a  dozen  times  as  strong,  or  let  us  say, 
goes  a  dozen  times  as  far,  for  nobody  wants  it  any 
stronger. 

Such  powerful  scents  as  these  are  only  pleasant  when 
highly  diluted,  yet  they  are,  as  we  have  seen,  essential 
ingredients  of  the  finest  perfumes.  For  instance,  the 
jiatural  oil  of  jasmine  and  other  flowers  contains  traces 


SYNTHETIC  PERFUMES  AND  FLAVORS  107 

of  indols  and  skatols  which  have  most  disgusting  odors. 
Though  our  olfactory  organs  cannot  detect  their  pres- 
ence yet  we  perceive  their  absence  so  they  have  to  be 
put  into  the  artificial  perfume.  Just  so  a  brief  but 
violent  discord  in  a  piece  of  music  or  a  glaring  color 
contrast  in  a  painting  may  be  necessary  to  the  harmony 
of  the  whole. 

It  is  absurd  to  object  to  '* artificial' '  perfumes,  for 
practically  all  perfumes  now  sold  are  artificial  in  the 
sense  of  being  compounded  by  the  art  of  the  perfumer 
and  whether  the  materials  he  uses  are  derived  from 
the  flowers  of  yesteryear  or  of  Carboniferous  Era  is 
nobody's  business  but  his.  And  he  does  not  tell.  The 
materials  can  be  purchased  in  the  open  market.  Vari- 
ous recipes  can  be  found  in  the  books.  But  every  fa- 
mous perfumer  guards  well  the  secret  of  his  formulas 
and  hands  it  as  a  legacy  to  his  posterity.  The  ancient 
Roman  family  of  Frangipani  has  been  made  immortal 
by  one  such  hereditary  recipe.  The  Farina  family  still 
claims  to  have  the  exclusive  knowledge  of  how  to  make 
Eau  de  Cologne.  This  famous  perfume  was  first  com- 
pounded by  an  Italian,  Giovanni  Maria  Farina,  who 
came  to  Cologne  in  1709.  It  soon  became  fashionable 
and  was  for  a  time  the  only  scent  allowed  at  some  of 
the  German  courts.  The  various  published  recipes 
contain  from  six  to  a  dozen  ingredients,  chiefly  the  oils 
of  neroli,  rosemary,  bergamot,  lemon  and  lavender  dis- 
solved in  very  pure  alcohol  and  allowed  to  age  like  wine. 
The  invention,  in  1895,  of  artificial  neroli  (orange  flow- 
ers) has  improved  the  product. 

French  perfumery,  like  the  German,  had  its  origin 
in  Italy,  when  Catherine  de'  Medici  came  to  Paris  as 


108  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

the  bride  of  Henri  II.  She  brought  with  her,  among 
other  artists,  her  perfumer,  Sieur  Toubarelli,  who  es- 
tablished himself  in  the  flowery  land  of  Grasse.  Here 
for  four  hundred  years  the  industry  has  remained 
rooted  and  the  family  formulas  have  been  handed  down 
from  generation  to  generation.  In  the  city  of  Grasse 
there  were  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  fifty  establish- 
ments making  perfumes.  The  French  perfumer  does 
not  confine  himself  to  a  single  sense.  He  appeals  as 
well  to  sight  and  sound  and  association.  He  adds  to 
the  attractiveness  of  his  creation  by  a  quaintly  shaped 
bottle,  an  artistic  box  and  an  enticing  name  such  as 
*'Dans  les  Nues,"  **Le  Coeur  de  Jeannette/'  **Nuit  de 
Chine,"  ''Vn  Air  Embaume,"  ^^Le  Vertige,"  *^Bon 
Vieux  Temps,"  '^L'Heure  Bleue,"  ^*Nuit  d 'Amour, 'N 
**Quelques  Fleurs,"  *'Djer-Kiss." 

The  requirements  of  a  successful  scent  are  very 
strict.  A  perfume  must  be  lasting,  but  not  strong. 
All  its  ingredients  must  continue  to  evaporate  in  the 
same  proportion,  otherwise  it  will  change  odor  and 
deteriorate.  Scents  kill  one  another  as  colors  do.  The 
minutest  trace  of  some  impurity  or  foreign  odor  may 
spoil  the  whole  effect.  To  mix  the  ingredients  in  a 
vessel  of  any  metal  but  aluminum  or  even  to  filter 
through  a  tin  funnel  is  likely  to  impair  the  perfume. 
The  odoriferous  compounds  are  very  sensitive  and  un- 
stable bodies,  otherwise  they  would  have  no  effect  upon 
the  olfactory  organ.  The  combination  that  would  be 
suitable  for  a  toilet  water  would  not  be  good  for  a  tal- 
cum powder  and  might  spoil  in  a  soap.  Perfumery  is 
used  even  in  the  ** scentless"  powders  and  soaps.  In 
fact  it  is  now  used  more  extensively,  if  less  intensively, 


SYNTHETIC  PERFUMES  AND  FLAVORS  109 

than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  world.  During 
the  Unwashed  Ages,  commonly  called  the  Dark  Ages, 
between  the  destruction  of  the  Roman  baths  and  the 
construction  of  the  modern  bathroom,  the  art  of  the 
perfumer,  like  all  the  fine  arts,  suffered  an  eclipse. 
**The  odor  of  sanctity''  was  in  highest  esteem  and 
what  that  odor  was  may  be  imagined  from  reading  the 
lives  of  the  saints.  But  in  the  course  of  centuries  the 
refinements  of  life  began  to  seep  back  into  Europe  from 
the  East  by  means  of  the  Arabs  and  Crusaders,  and 
chemistry,  then  chiefly  the  art  of  cosmetics,  began  to 
revive.  When  science,  the  greatest  democratizing 
agent  on  earth,  got  into  action  it  elevated  the  poor  to  the 
ranks  of  kings  and  priests  in  the  delights  of  the  palate 
and  the  nose.  We  should  not  despise  these  delights, 
for  the  pleasure  they  confer  is  greater,  in  amount 
at  least,  than  that  of  the  so-called  higher  senses.  We 
eat  three  times  a  day ;  some  of  us  drink  of tener ;  few  of 
us  visit  the  concert  hall  or  the  art  gallery  as  often  as 
we  do  the  dining  room.  Then,  too,  these  primitive 
senses  have  a  stronger  influence  upon  our  emotional 
nature  than  those  acquired  later  in  the  course  of  evo- 
lution.   As  Kipling  puts  it : 

Smells  are  surer  than  sounds  or  sights 
To  make  your  heart-strings  crack. 


VI 

CELLULOSE 

Organic  compounds,  on  which  our  life  and  living  de- 
pend, consist  chiefly  of  four  elements:  carbon,  hydro- 
gen, oxygen  and  nitrogen.  These  compounds  are 
sometimes  hard  to  analyze,  but  when  once  the  chemist 
has  ascertained  their  constitution  he  can  usually  make 
them  out  of  their  elements — if  he  wants  to.  He  will 
not  want  to  do  it  as  a  business  unless  it  pays  and  it 
will  not  pay  unless  the  manufacturing  process  is 
cheaper  than  the  natural  process.  This  depends  pri- 
marily upon  the  cost  of  the  crude  materials.  What, 
then,  is  the  market  price  of  these  four  elements?  Oxy- 
gen and  nitrogen  are  free  as  air,  and  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  second  chapter,  their  direct  combination  by  the  elec- 
tric spark  is  possible.  Hydrogen  is  free  in  the  form  of 
water  but  expensive  to  extricate  by  means  of  the  elec- 
tric current.  But  we  need  more  carbon  than  anything 
else  and  where  shall  we  get  that  1  Bits  of  crystallized 
carbon  can  be  picked  up  in  South  Africa  and  else- 
where, but  those  who  can  atford  to  buy  them  prefer 
to  wear  them  rather  than  use  them  in  making  synthetic 
food.  Graphite  is  rare  and  hard  to  melt.  We  must 
then  have  recourse  to  the  compounds  of  carbon.  The 
simplest  of  these,  carbon  dioxide,  exists  in  the  air  but 
only  four  parts  in  ten  thousand  by  volume.  To  ex- 
tract the  carbon  and  get  it  into  combination  with  the 
other   elements   would  be   a   difficult   and   expensive 

110 


CELLULOSE  111 

process.  Here,  then,  we  must  call  in  cheap  labor,  the 
cheapest  of  all  laborers,  the  plants.  Pine  trees  on  the 
highlands  and  cotton  plants  on  the  lowlands  keep  their 
green  traps  set  all  the  day  long  and  with  the  captured 
carbon  dioxide  build  up  cellulose.  If,  then,  man  wants 
free  carbon  he  can  best  get  it  by  charring  wood  in 
a  kiln  or  digging  up  that  which  has  been  charred 
in  nature's  kiln  during  the  Carboniferous  Era.  But 
there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  want  to  go  back  to 
elemental  carbon  when  he  can  have  it  already  com- 
bined with  hydrogen  in  the  remains  of  modem  or  fossil 
vegetation.  The  synthetic  products  on  which  modem 
chemistry  prides  itself,  such  as  vanillin,  camphor  and 
rubber,  are  not  built  up  out  of  their  elements,  C,  H 
and  0,  although  they  might  be  as  a  laboratory  stunt. 
Instead  of  that  the  raw  material  of  the  organic  chemist 
is  chiefly  cellulose,  or  the  products  of  its  recent  or  re- 
mote destructive  distillation,  tar  and  oil. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  tell  the  reader  what  cellulose 
is  since  he  now  holds  a  specimen  of  it  in  his  hand, 
pretty  pure  cellulose  except  for  the  sizing  and  the 
specks  of  carbon  that  mar  the  whiteness  of  its  surface. 
This  utilization  of  cellulose  is  the  chief  cause  of  the 
difference  between  the  modern  world  and  the  ancient, 
for  what  is  called  the  invention  of  printing  is  essen- 
tially the  inventing  of  paper.  The  Romans  made  type 
to  stamp  their  coins  and  lead  pipes  with  and  if  they 
'had  had  paper  to  print  upon  the  world  might  have 
escaped  the  Dark  Ages.  But  the  clay  tablets  of  the 
Babylonians  were  cumbersome ;  the  wax  tablets  of  the 
Greeks  were  perishable ;  the  papyrus  of  the  Egyptians 
.;was  fragile;  parchment  was  expensive  and  penning 


112  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

was  slow,  so  it  was  not  until  literature  was  put  on  a 
paper  basis  that  democratic  education  became  pos- 
sible. At  the  present  time  sheepskin  is  only  used  for 
diplomas,  treaties  and  other  antiquated  documents. 
And  even  if  your  diploma  is  written  in  Latin  it  is 
likely  to  be  made  of  sulfated  cellulose. 

The  textile  industry  has  followed  the  same  law  of 
development  that  I  have  indicated  in  the  other  in- 
dustries. Here  again  we  find  the  three  stages  of 
progress,  (1)  utilization  of  natural  products,  (2)  cul- 
tivation of  natural  products,  (3)  manufacture  of  arti- 
ficial products.  The  ancients  were  dependent  upon 
plants,  animals  and  insects  for  their  fibers.  China 
used  silk,  Greece  and  Rome  used  wool,  Egypt  used 
flax  and  India  used  cotton.  In  the  course  of  cultiva- 
tion for  three  thousand  years  the  animal  and  vegetable 
fibers  were  lengthened  and  strengthened  and  cheap- 
ened. But  at  last  man  has  risen  to  the  level  of  the 
worm  and  can  spin  threads  to  suit  himself.  He  can 
now  rival  the  wasp  in  the  making  of  paper.  He  is  no 
longer  dependent  upon  the  flax  and  the  cotton  plant, 
but  grinds  up  trees  to  get  his  cellulose.  A  New  York 
newspaper  uses  up  nearly  2000  acres  of  forest  a  year. 
The  United  States  grinds  up  about  ^ve  million  cords 
of  wood  a  year  in  the  manufacture  of  pulp  for  paper 
and  other  purposes. 

In  making  ** mechanical  pulp''  the  blocks  of  wood, 
mostly  spruce  and  hemlock,  are  simply  pressed  side- 
wise  of  the  grain  against  wet  grindstones.  But  in  wood 
fiber  the  cellulose  is  in  part  combined  with  lignin. 
which  is  worse  than  useless.  To  break  up  the  ligno- 
cellulose  combine  chemicals  are  used.     The  logs  foi 


CELLULOSE  113 

this  are  not  ground  fine,  but  cut  up  by  disk  cbippers. 
The  chips  are  digested  for  several  hours  under  heat 
and  pressure  with  acid  or  alkali.  There  are  three 
processes  in  vogue.  In  the  most  common  process  the 
reagent  is  calcium  sulfite,  made  by  passing  sulfur 
fumes  (SO2)  into  lime  water.  In  another  process  a 
solution  of  caustic  of  soda  is  used  to  disintegrate  the 
wood.  The  third,  known  as  the  ** sulfate''  process, 
should  rather  be  called  the  sulfide  process  since  the 
active  agent  is  an  alkaline  solution  of  sodium  sulfide 
made  by  roasting  sodium  sulfate  with  the  carbonaceous 
matter  extracted  from  the  wood.  This  sulfate  process, 
though  the  most  recent  of  the  three,  is  being  increas- 
ingly employed  in  this  country,  for  by  means  of  it  the 
resinous  pine  wood  of  the  South  can  be  worked  up 
and  the  final  product,  known  as  kraft  paper  because 
it  is  strong,  is  used  for  wrapping. 

But  whatever  the  process  we  get  nearly  pure 
cellulose  which,  as  you  can  see  by  examining  this  page 
under  a  microscope,  consists  of  a  tangled  web  of  thin 
white  fibers,  the  remains  of  the  original  cell  walls. 
Owing  to  the  severe  treatment  it  has  undergone  wood 
pulp  paper  does  not  last  so  long  as  the  linen  rag  paper 
used  by  our  ancestors.  The  pages  of  the  newspapers, 
magazines  and  books  printed  nowadays  are  likely  to 
become  brown  and  brittle  in  a  few  years,  no  great  loss 
for  the  most  part  since  they  have  served  their  pur- 
pose, though  it  is  a  pity  that  a  few  copies  of  the  worst 
of  them  could  not  be  printed  on  permanent  paper  for 
preservation  in  libraries  so  that  future  generations 
could  congratulate  themselves  on  their  progress  in 
civilization. 


114:  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

But  in  our  absorption  in  the  printed  page  we  must 
not  forget  the  other  uses  of  paper.  The  paper  cloth- 
ing, so  often  prophesied,  has  not  yet  arrived.  Even 
paper  collars  have  gone  out  of  fashion — if  they  ever 
were  in.  In  Germany  during  the  war  paper  was  used 
for  socks,  shirts  and  shoes  as  well  as  handkerchiefs 
and  napkins  but  it  could  not  stand  wear  and  washing. 
Our  sanitary  engineers  have  set  us  to  drinking  out 
of  sharp-edged  paper  cups  and  we  blot  our  faces  in- 
stead of  wiping  them.  Twine  is  spun  of  paper  and  fur- 
niture made  of  the  twine,  a  rival  of  rattan.  Cloth  and 
matting  woven  of  paper  yarn  are  being  used  for  burlap 
and  grass  in  the  making  of  bags  and  suitcases. 

Here,  however,  we  are  not  so  much  interested  in 
manufactures  of  cellulose  itself,  that  is,  wood,  paper 
and  cotton,  as  we  are  in  its  chemical  derivatives. 
Cellulose,  as  we  can  see  from  the  symbol,  CeHioOg,  is 
composed  of  the  three  elements  of  carbon,  hydrogen 
and  oxygen.  These  are  present  in  the  same  propor- 
tion as  in  starch  (CgHioOg),  while  glucose  or  grape 
sugar  (CeHigOg)  has  one  molecule  of  water  more. 
But  glucose  is  soluble  in  cold  water  and  starch  is  sol- 
uble in  hot,  while  cellulose  is  soluble  in  neither.  Con- 
sequently cellulose  cannot  serve  us  for  food,  although 
some  of  the  vegetarian  animals,  notably  the  goat,  have 
a  digestive  apparatus  that  can  handle  it.  In  Finland 
and  Germany  birch  wood  pulp  and  straw  were  used  not 
only  as  an  ingredient  of  cattle  food  but  also  put  into 
war  bread.  It  is  not  likely,  however,  that  the  human 
stomach  even  under  the  pressure  of  famine  is  able  to 
get  much  nutriment  out  of  sawdust.  But  by  digesting 
with   dilute   acid   sawdust   can  be   transformed  into 


CELLULOSE  115 

sugars  and  these  by  fermentation  into  alcohol,  so  it 
would  be  possible  for  a  man  after  he  has  read  his 
morning  paper  to  get  drunk  on  it. 

If  the  cellulose,  instead  of  being  digested  a  long 
time  in  dilute  acid,  is  dipped  into  a  solution  of  sulfuric 
acid  (50  to  80  per  cent.)  and  then  washed  and  dried 
it  acquires  a  hard,  tough  and  translucent  coating  that 
makes  it  water-proof  and  grease-proof.  This  is  the 
** parchment  paper"  that  has  largely  replaced  sheep- 
skin. Strong  alkali  has  a  similar  effect  to  strong  acid. 
In  1844  John  Mercer,  a  Lancashire  calico  printer,  dis- 
covered that  by  passing  cotton  cloth  or  yarn  through 
a  cold  30  per  cent,  solution  of  caustic  soda  the  fiber  is 
shortened  and  strengthened.  For  over  forty  years 
little  attention  was  paid  to  this  discovery,  but  when  it 
was  found  that  if  the  material  was  stretched  so  that 
it  could  not  shrink  on  drying  the  twisted  ribbons  of  the 
cotton  fiber  were  changed  into  smooth-walled  cylinders 
like  silk,  the  process  came  into  general  use  and  nowa- 
days much  that  passes  for  silk  is  **  mercerized ' '  cotton. 

Another  step  was  taken  when  Cross  of  London  dis- 
covered that  when  the  mercerized  cotton  was  treated 
with  carbon  disulfide  it  was  dissolved  to  a  yellow 
liquid.  This  liquid  contains  the  cellulose  in  solution 
as  a  cellulose  xanthate  and  on  acidifying  or  heating 
the  cellulose  is  recovered  in  a  hydrated  form.  If  this 
yellow  solution  of  cellulose  is  squirted  out  of  tubes 
through  extremely  minute  holes  into  acidulated  water, 
each  tiny  stream  becomes  instantly  solidified  into  a 
sill^  thread  which  may  be  spun  and  woven  like  that 
ejected  from  the  spinneret  of  the  silkworm.  The 
origin  of  natural  silk,  if  we  think  about  it,  rather  de- 


116  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

tracts  from  the  pleasure  of  wearing  it,  and  if  **he  who 
needlessly  sets  foot  upon  a  worm''  is  to  be  avoided  as 
a  friend  we  must  hope  that  the  advance  of  the  artificial 
silk  industry  will  be  rapid  enough  to  relieve  us  of  the 
necessity  of  boiling  thousands  of  baby  worms  in  their 
cradles  whenever  we  want  silk  stockings. 

On  a  plain  rush  hurdle  a  silkworm  lay 
When  a  proud  young  princess  came  that  way. 
The  haughty  daughter  of  a  lordly  king 
Threw  a  sidelong  glance  at  the  humble  thing, 
Little  thinking  she  walked  in  pride 
In  the  winding  sheet  where  the  silkworm  died. 

But  so  far  we  have  not  reached  a  stage  where  we  can 
altogether  dispense  with  the  services  of  the  silkworm. 
The  viscose  threads  made  by  the  process  look  as  well 
as  silk,  but  they  are  not  so  strong,  especially  when  wet. 

Besides  the  viscose  method  there  are  several  other 
methods  of  getting  cellulose  into  solution  so  that  arti- 
ficial fibers  may  be  made  from  it.  A  strong  solution  of 
zinc  chloride  will  serve  and  this  p^'ocess  used  to  be  em- 
ployed for  making  the  threads  to  be  charred  into  carbon 
filaments  for  incandescent  bulbs.  Cellulose  is  also  sol- 
uble in  an  ammoniacal  solution  of  copper  hydroxide. 
The  liquid  thus  formed  is  squirted  through  a  fine  nozzle 
into  a  precipitating  solution  of  caustic  soda  and  glu- 
cose, which  brings  back  the  cellulose  to  its  original 
form. 

In  the  chapter  on  explosives  I  explained  how  cellulose 
treated  w^ith  nitric  acid  in  the  presence  of  sulfuric  acid 
was  nitrated.  The  cellulose  molecule  having  three  hy- 
droxy! ( — OH)  groups,  can  take  up  one,  two  or  three 


CELLULOSE  117 

nitrate  groups  ( — ONO2).  The  higher  nitrates  are 
known  as  guncotton  and  form  the  basis  of  modern  dy- 
namite and  smokeless  powder.  The  lower  nitrates, 
known  as  pyroxylin,  are  less  explosive,  although  still 
very  inflammable.  All  these  nitrates  are,  like  the  orig- 
inal cellulose,  insoluble  in  water,  but  unlike  the  original 
cellulose,  soluble  in  a  mixture  of  ether  and  alcohol. 
The  solution  is  called  collodion  and  is  now  in  common 
use  to  spread  a  new  skin  over  a  wound.  The  great  war 
might  be  traced  back  to  NobePs  cut  finger.  Alfred 
Nobel  was  a  Swedish  chemist — and  a  pacifist.  One  day 
while  working  in  the  laboratory  he  cut  his  finger,  as 
chemists  are  apt  to  do,  and,  again  as  chemists  are  apt 
to  do,  he  dissolved  some  guncotton  in  ether-alcohol  and 
swabbed  it  on  the  wound.  At  this  point,  however,  his 
conduct  diverges  from  the  ordinary,  for  instead  of 
standing  idle,  impatiently  waving  his  hand  in  the  air  to 
dry  the  film  as  most  people,  including  chemists,  are  apt 
to  do,  he  put  his  mind  on  it  and  it  occurred  to  him  that 
this  sticky  stuff,  slowly  hardening  to  an  elastic  mass, 
might  be  just  the  thing  he  was  hunting  as  an  absorbent 
and  solidifier  of  nitroglycerin.  So  instead  of  throwing 
away  the  extra  collodion  that  he  had  made  he  mixed 
it  with  nitroglycerin  and  found  that  it  set  to  a  jelly. 
The  ** blasting  gelatin'*  thus  discovered  proved  to  be  so 
insensitive  to  shock  that  it  could  be  safely  transported 
or  fired  from  a  cannon.  This  was  the  first  of  the  high 
explosives  that  have  been  the  chief  factor  in  modern 
warfare. 

But  on  the  whole,  collodion  has  healed  more  wounds 
than  it  has  caused  besides  being  of  infinite  service  to 
mankind  otherwise.     It  has  made  modern  photography 


118  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

possible,  for  the  film  we  use  in  the  camera  and  moving 
picture  projector  consists  of  a  gelatin  coating  on  a 
pyroxylin  backing.  If  collodion  is  forced  through  fine 
glass  tubes  instead  of  through  a  slit,  it  comes  out  a 
thread  instead  of  a  film.  If  the  collodion  jet  is  run  into 
a  vat  of  cold  water  the  ether  and  alcohol  dissolve ;  if  it 
is  run  into  a  chamber  of  warm  air  they  evaporate. 
The  thread  of  nitrated  cellulose  may  be  rendered  less 
inflammable  by  taking  out  the  nitrate  groups  by  treat- 
ment with  ammonium  or  calcium  sulfide.  This  restore? 
the  original  cellulose,  but  now  it  is  an  endless  thread 
of  any  desired  thickness,  whereas  the  native  fiber  was 
in  size  and  length  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  cotton- 
seed instead  of  the  needs  of  man.  The  old  motto,  **If 
you  want  a  thing  done  the  way  you  want  it  you  must 
do  it  yourself,"  explains  why  the  chemist  has  been 
called  in  to  supplement  the  work  of  nature  in  catering 
to  human  wants. 

Instead  of  nitric  acid  we  may  use  strong  acetic  acid 
to  dissolve  the  cotton.  The  resulting  cellulose  acetates 
are  less  inflammable  than  the  nitrates,  but  they  are 
more  brittle  and  more  expensive.  Motion  picture  films 
made  from  them  can  be  used  in  any  hall  without  the  ne- 
cessity of  imprisoning  the  operator  in  a  fire-proof  box 
where  if  anything  happens  he  can  burn  up  all  by  him- 
self without  disturbing  the  audience.  The  cellulose 
acetates  are  being  used  for  auto  goggles  and  gas  masks 
as  well  as  for  windows  in  leather  curtains  and  trans- 
parent coverings  for  index  cards.  A  new  use  that  has 
lately  become  important  is  the  varnishing  of  aeroplane 
wings,  as  it  does  not  readily  absorb  water  or  catch  fire 


CELLULOSE  119 

and  makes  the  cloth  taut  and  air-tight.  Aeroplane 
wings  can  be  made  of  cellulose  acetate  sheets  as  trans- 
parent as  those  of  a  dragon-fly  and  not  easy  to  see 
against  the  sky. 

The  nitrates,  sulfates  and  acetates  are  the  salts  or 
esters  of  the  respective  acids,  but  recently  true  ethers 
or  oxides  of  cellulose  have  been  prepared  that  may 
prove  still  better  since  they  contain  no  acid  radicle  and 
are  neutral  and  stable. 

These  are  in  brief  the  chief  processes  for  making 
what  is  commonly  but  quite  improperly  called  **  arti- 
ficial silk.''  They  are  not  the  same  substance  as  silk- 
worm silk  and  ought  not  to  be — though  they  sometimes 
are — sold  as  such.  They  are  none  of  them  as  strong 
as  the  silk  fiber  when  wet,  although  if  I  should  venture 
to  say  which  of  the  various  makes  weakens  the  most  on 
wetting  I  should  get  myself  into  trouble.  I  will  only 
say  that  if  you  have  a  grudge  against  some  fisherman 
give  him  a  fly  line  of  artificial  silk,  'most  any  kind. 

The  nitrate  process  was  discovered  by  Count  Hilaire 
de  Chardonnet  while  he  was  at  the  Polytechnic  School 
of  Paris,  and  he  devoted  his  life  and  his  fortune  trying 
to  perfect  it.  Samples  of  the  artificial  silk  were  exhib- 
ited at  the  Paris  Exposition  in  1889  and  two  years 
later  he  started  a  factory  at  Basangon.  In  1892,  Cross 
and  Bevan,  English  chemists,  discovered  the  viscose 
or  xanthate  process,  and  later  the  acetate  process.  But 
although  all  four  of  these  processes  were  invented  in 
France  and  England,  Germany  reaped  most  benefit 
from  the  new  industry,  which  was  bringing  into  that 
country  $6,000,000  a  year  before  the  war.     The  largest 


120  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

producer  in  the  world  was  the  Vereinigte  Glanzstoff- 
Fabriken  of  Elberfeld,  which  was  paying  annual  divi- 
dends of  34  per  cent,  in  1914. 

The  raw  materials,  as  may  be  seen,  are  cheap  and 
abundant,  merely  cellulose,  salt,  sulfur,  carbon,  air  and 
water.  Any  kind  of  cellulose  can  be  used,  cotton  waste, 
rags,  paper,  or  even  wood  pulp.  The  processes  are  va- 
rious, the  names  of  the  products  are  numerous  and  the 
uses  are  innumerable.  Even  the  most  inattentive  must 
have  noticed  the  widespread  employment  of  these  new 
forms  of  cellulose.  We  can  buy  from  a  street  barrow 
for  fifteen  cents  near-silk  neckties  that  look  as  well  as 
those  sold  for  seventy-five.  As  for  wear — ^well,  they 
all  of  them  wear  till  after  we  get  tired  of  wearing  them. 
Paper  ** vulcanized''  by  being  run  through  a  30  per 
cent,  solution  of  zinc  chloride  and  subjected  to  hy- 
draulic pressure  comes  out  hard  and  horny  and  may  be 
used  for  trunks  and  suit  cases.  Viscose  tubes  for  sau- 
sage containers  are  more  sanitary  and  appetizing  than 
the  customary  casings.  Viscose  replaces  ramie  or  cot- 
ton in  the  Welsbach  gas  mantles.  Viscose  film,  trans- 
parent and  a  thousandth  of  an  inch  thick  (cellophane), 
serves  for  candy  wrappers.  Cellulose  acetate  cylin- 
ders spun  out  of  larger  orifices  than  silk  are  trying — 
not  very  successfully  as  yet — ^to  compete  with  hog's 
bristles  and  horsehair.  Stir  powdered  metals  into  the 
cellulose  solution  and  you  have  the  Bayko  yarn. 
Bayko  (fiom  the  manufacturers,  Farbenfabriken  vorm. 
Friedr.  Bayer  and  Company)  is  one  of  those  telescoped 
names  like  Socony,  Nylic,  Fominco,  Alco,  Ropeco,  Ri- 
pans,  Penn-Yan,  Anzac,  Dagor,  Dora  and  Cadets,  which 
will  be  the  despair  of  future  philologers. 


CELLULOSE    FROM   WOOD   PULP 

This  is  now  made  into  a  large  variety  of  useful  articles  of  which  a  few  examples  are  here 

pictured. 


CELLULOSE  121 

Soluble  cellulose  may  enable  us  in  time  to  dispense 

with  the  weaver  as  well  as  the  silk-worm.     It  may  by 

one  operation  give  us  fabrics  instead  of  threads.     A 

machine  has  been  invented  for  manufacturing  net  and 

lace,  the  liquid  material  being  poured  on  one  side  of  a 

roller  and  the  fabric  being  reeled  off  on  the  other  side. 

I  The  process  seems  capable  of  indefinite  extension  and 

I  application  to  various  sorts  of  woven,  knit  and  reticu- 

!  lated  goods.     The  raw  material  is  cotton  waste  and  the 

I  finished  fabric  is  a  good  substitute  for  silk.     As  in  the 

\  process  of  making  artificial  silk  the  cellulose  is  dis- 

[  solved  in  a  cupro-ammoniacal  solution,  but  instead  of 

'  being  forced  out  through  minute   openings  to  form 

j  threads,  as  in  that  process,  the  paste  is  allowed  to  flow 

}  upon  a  revolving  cylinder  which  is  engraved  with  the 

pattern  of  the  desired  textile.     A  scraper  removes  the 

excess  and  the  turning  of  the  cylinder  brings  the  paste 

in  the  engraved  lines  down  into  a  bath  which  solidi- 

ifies  it. 

:  Tulle  or  net  is  now  what  is  chiefly  being  turned  out, 
Ibnt  the  engraved  design  may  be  as  elaborate  and  artis- 
»tic  as  desired,  and  various  materials  can  be  used. 
iSince  the  threads  wherever  they  cross  are  united,  the 
'fabric  is  naturally  stronger  than  the  ordinary.  It  is 
all  of  a  piece  and  not  composed  of  parts.  In  short,  we 
seem  to  be  on  the  eve  of  a  revolution  in  textiles  that  is 
the  same  as  that  taking  place  in  building  materials. 
Our  concrete  structures,  however  great,  are  all  one 
stone.  They  are  not  built  up  out  of  blocks,  but  cast 
as  a  whole. 

Lace  has  always  been  the  aristocrat  among  textiles. 
It  has  maintained  its  exclusiveness  hitherto  by  being 


122  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

based  upon  hand  labor.  In  no  other  way  could  one  get 
so  much  painful,  patient  toil  put  into  such  a  light  and 
portable  form.  A  filmy  thing  twined  about  a  neck  or 
dropping  from  a  wrist  represented  years  of  work  by 
poor  peasant  girls  or  pallid,  unpaid  nuns.  A  visit  to  a 
lace  factory,  even  to  the  public  rooms  where  the  worn- 
out  women  were  not  to  be  seen,  is  enough  to  make  one 
resolve  never  to  purchase  any  such  thing  made  by  hand 
again.  But  our  good  resolutions  do  not  last  long  and 
in  time  we  forget  the  strained  eyes  and  bowed  backs, 
or,  what  is  worse,  value  our  bit  of  lace  all  the  more  be- 
cause it  means  that  some  poor  woman  has  put  her  life 
and  health  into  it,  netting  and  weaving,  purling  and 
knotting,  twining  and  twisting,  throwing  and  drawing, 
thread  by  thread,  day  after  day,  until  her  eyes  can  no 
longer  see  and  her  fingers  have  become  stiffened. 

But  man  is  not  naturally  cruel.  He  does  not  really 
enjoy  being  a  slave  driver,  either  of  human  or  animal 
slaves,  although  he  can  be  hardened  to  it  with  shocking 
ease  if  there  seems  no  other  way  of  getting  what  he 
wants.  So  he  usually  welcomes  that  Great  Liberator 
the  Machine.  He  prefers  to  drive  the  tireless  engim 
than  to  whip  the  straining  horses.  He  had  rather  sec 
the  farmer  riding  at  ease  in  a  mowing  machine  thai 
bending  his  back  over  a  scythe. 

The  Machine  is  not  only  the  Great  Liberator,  it  is  th( 
Great  Leveler  also.  It  is  the  most  powerful  of  th( 
forces  for  democracy.  An  aristocracy  can  hardly  b( 
maintained  except  by  distinction  in  dress,  and  distinc 
tion  in  dress  can  only  be  maintained  by  sumptuary  laws 
or  costliness.  Sumptuary  laws  are  unconstitution " 
in  this  country,  hence  the  stress  laid  upon  costlino^ 


CELLULOSE  123 

But  machinery  tends  to  bring  styles  and  fabrics  within 
the  reach  of  all.  The  shopgirl  is  almost  as  well  dressed 
on  the  street  as  her  rich  customer.  The  man  who  buys 
ready-made  clothing  is  only  a  few  weeks  behind  the 
vanguard  of  the  fashion.  There  is  often  no  difference 
perceptible  to  the  ordinary  eye  between  cheap  and 
high-priced  clothing  once  the  price  tag  is  off.  Jewels 
as  a  portable  form  of  concentrated  costliness  have  been 
in  favor  from  the  earliest  ages,  but  now  they  are  losing 
their  factitious  value  through  the  advance  of  invention. 
Rubies  of  unprecedented  size,  not  imitation,  but  genuine 
rubies,  can  now  be  manufactured  at  reasonable  rates. 
And  now  we  may  hope  that  lace  may  soon  be  within 
the  reach  of  all,  not  merely  lace  of  the  established 
forms,  but  new  and  more  varied  and  intricate  and 
beautiful  designs,  such  as  the  imagination  has  been 
able  to  conceive,  but  the  hand  cannot  execute. 

Dissolving  nitrocellulose  in  ether  and  alcohol  we  get 
;he  collodion  varnish  that  we  are  all  familiar  with  since 
i^e  have  used  it  on  our  cut  fingers.  Spread  it  on  cloth 
instead  of  your  skin  and  it  makes  a  very  good  leather 
substitute.  As  we  all  know  to  our  cost  the  number  of 
inimals  to  be  skinned  has  not  increased  so  rapidly  in 
recent  years  as  the  number  of  feet  to  be  shod.  After 
aaving  gone  barefoot  for  a  million  years  or  so  the  ma- 
jority of  mankind  have  decided  to  wear  shoes  and  this 
jhange  in  fashion  comes  at  a  time,  roughly  speaking, 
Ivlien  pasture  land  is  getting  scarce.  Also  there  are 
books  to  be  bound  and  other  new  things  to  be  done  for 
^^hich  leather  is  needed.  The  war  has  intensified  the 
itringency;  so  has  feminine  fashion.  The  conventions 
equire  that  the  shoe-tops  extend  nearly  to  skirt-bottom 


124  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

and  this  means  that  an  inch  or  so  must  be  added  to  the 
shoe-top  every  year.  Consequent  to  this  rise  in  leather 
we  have  to  pay  as  much  for  one  shoe  as  we  used  to  pay 
for  a  pair. 

Here,  then,  is  a  chance  for  Necessity  to  exercise  her 
maternal  function.  And  she  has  responded  nobly.  A 
progeny  of  new  substances  have  been  brought  forth 
and,  what  is  most  encouraging  to  see,  they  are  no 
longer  trying  to  worm  their  wslj  into  favor  as  surrep- 
titious surrogates  under  the  names  of  ^^leatheret,'' 
*  ^Catherine, ' '  *  leather oid''  and  *  leather- this-or-that'* 
but  come  out  boldly  under  names  of  their  own  coinage 
and  declare  themselves  not  an  imitation,  not  even  a 
substitute,  but  *^ better  than  leather.*'  This  policy  has 
had  the  curious  result  of  compelling  the  cowhide  men 
to  take  full  pages  in  the  magazines  to  call  attention  toj 
the  forgotten  virtues  of  good  old-fashioned  sole-j 
leather!  There  are  now  upon  the  market  syntheticj 
shoes  that  a  vegetarian  could  wear  with  a  clear  con-sj 
science.  The  soles  are  made  of  some  rubber  composi- 
tion; the  uppers  of  cellulose  fabric  (canvas)  coated 
with  a  cellulose  solution  such  as  I  have  described.  | 

Each  firm  keeps  its  own  process  for  such  substancd 
a  dead  secret,  but  without  prying  into  these  w( 
can  learn  enough  to  satisfy  our  legitimate  curiosity 
The  first  of  the  artificial  fabrics  was  the  old-fash 
ioned  and  still  indispensable  oil-cloth,  that  is  canva&' 
painted  or  printed  with  linseed  oil  carrying  the  desireci 
pigments.  Linseed  oil  belongs  to  the  class  of  com- 
pounds that  the  chemist  calls  **  unsaturated '*  and  thfe 
psychologist  would  call  * 'unsatisfied.''  They  take  uj 
oxygen  from  the  air  and  become  solid,  hence  are  calle( 


CELLULOSE  125 

the  "drying  oils/'  although  this  does  not  mean  that 
they  lose  water,  for  they  have  not  any  to  lose.  Later, 
ground  cork  was  mixed  with  the  linseed  oil  and  then  it 
went  by  its  Latin  name,  *  linoleum. '* 
I  The  next  step  was  to  cut  loose  altogether  from  the 
[natural  oils  and  use  for  the  varnish  a  solution  of  some 
I  of  the  cellulose  esters,  usually  the  nitrate  (pyroxylin  or 
guncotton),  more  rarely  the  acetate.  As  a  solvent  the 
ether-alcohol  mixture  forming  collodion  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  first  to  be  employed,  but  now  various 
other  solvents  are  in  use,  among  them  castor  oil,  methyl 
alcohol,  acetone,  and  the  acetates  of  amyl  or  ethyl. 
Some  of  these  will  be  recognized  as  belonging  to  the 
fruit  essences  that  we  considered  in  Chapter  V,  and 
doubtless  most  of  us  have  perceived  an  odor  as  of  over- 
ripe pears,  bananas  or  apples  mysteriously  emanating 
from  a  newly  lacquered  radiator.  With  powdered 
}ronze,  imitation  gold,  aluminum  or  something  of  the 
dnd  a  metallic  finish  can  be  put  on  any  surface. 

Canvas  coated  or  impregnated  with  such  soluble  cel- 
ulose  gives  us  new  flexible  and  durable  fabrics  that 
lave  other  advantages  over  leather  besides  being 
cheaper  and  more  abundant.  Without  such  material 
■or  curtains  and  cushions  the  automobile  business 
^ould  have  been  sorely  hampered.  It  promises  to  pro- 
;dde  us  with  a  book  binding  that  will  not  crumble  to 
)owder  in  the  course  of  twenty  years.  Linen  collars 
nay  be  water-proofed  and  possibly  Dame  Fashion — 
)eing  a  fickle  lady — may  some  day  relent  and  let  us 
vear  such  sanitary  and  economical  neckwear.  For 
[hoes,  purses,  belts  and  the  like  the  cellulose  varnish 
)r  veneer  is  usually  colored  and  stamped  to  resemble 


126  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

the  grain  of  any  kind  of  leather  desired,  even  snake  or 
alligator. 

If  instead  of  dissolving  the  cellulose  nitrate  and 
spreading  it  on  fabric  we  combine  it  with  camphor  wo 
get  celluloid,  a  plastic  solid  capable  of  innumerable 
applications.  But  that  is  another  story  and  must  be 
reserved  for  the  next  chapter. 

But  before  leaving  the  subject  of  cellulose  proper  II 
must  refer  back  again  to  its  chief  source,  wood.  We 
inherited  from  the  Indians  a  well-wooded  continent. 
But  the  pioneer  carried  an  ax  on  his  shoulder  and 
began  using  it  immediately.  For  three  hundred  years 
the  trees  have  been  cut  down  faster  than  they  could 
grow,  first  to  clear  the  land,  next  for  fuel,  then  for 
lumber  and  lastly  for  paper.  Consequently  we  are 
within  sight  of  a  shortage  of  wood  as  we  are  of  coal  and 
oil.  But  the  coal  and  oil  are  irrecoverable  while  the 
wood  may  be  regrown,  though  it  would  require  anothei 
three  hundred  years  and  more  to  grow  some  of  the 
trees  we  have  cut  down.  For  fuel  a  pound  of  coal  h 
about  equal  to  two  pounds  of  wood,  and  a  pound  oJ 
gasoline  to  three  pounds  of  wood  in  heating  value,  sc 
there  would  be  a  great  loss  in  efficiency  and  economy  i' 
the  world  had  to  go  back  to  a  wood  basis.  But  whci 
that  time  shall  come,  as,  of  course,  it  must  come  som( 
time,  the  wood  will  doubtless  not  be  burned  in  its  nat 
ural  state  but  will  be  converted  into  hydrogen  anc 
carbon  monoxide  in  a  gas  producer  or  will  be  distille( 
in  closed  ovens  giving  charcoal  and  gas  and  saving  th- 
by-products,  the  tar  and  acid  liquors.  As  it  is  now  th 
lumberman  wastes  two-thirds  of  every  tree  he  cuti 
down.    The  rest  is  left  in  the  forest  as  stump  and  top 


CELLULOSE  .        127 

r  thrown  out  at  the  mill  as  sawdust  and  slabs.  The 
labs  and  other  scraps  may  be  used  as  fuel  or  w;orked 
p  into  small  wood  articles  like  laths  and  clothes-pins, 
'he  sawdust  is  burned  or  left  to  rot.  But  it  is  possible, 
Ithough  it  may  not  be  profitable,  to  save  all  this  waste. 
In  a  former  chapter  I  showed  the  advantages  of  the 
itroduction  of  by-product  coke-ovens.  The  same 
rinciple  applies  to  wood  as  to  coal.  If  a  cord  of  wood 
128  cubic  feet)  is  subjected  to  a  process  of  destructive 
istillation  it  yields  about  50  bus'hels  of  charcoal,  11,500 
ubic  feet  of  gas,  25  gallons  of  tar,  10  gallons  of  crude 
^ood  alcohol  and  200  pounds  of  crude  acetate  of  lime, 
^esinous  woods  such  as  pine  and  fir  distilled  with  steam 
ive  turpentine  and  rosin.  The  acetate  of  lime  gives 
cetic  acid  and  acetone.  The  wood  (methyl)  alcohol  is 
Imost  as  useful  as  grain  (ethyl)  alcohol  in  arts  and 
idustry  and  has  the  advantage  of  killing  off  those  who 
rink  it  promptly  instead  of  slowly. 
The  chemist  is  an  economical  soul.  He  is  never  cou- 
nt until  he  has  converted  every  kind  of  waste  product 
ito  some  kind  of  profitable  by-product.  He  now  has 
is  glittering  eye  fixed  upon  the  mountains  of  sawdust 
lat  pile  up  about  the  lumber  mills.  He  also  has  a 
otion  that  he  can  beat  lumber  for  some  purposes. 


vn 

SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS 

In  the  last  chapter  I  told  how  Alfred  Nobel  cut  hii 
finger  and,  daubing  it  over  with  collodion,  was  led  t* 
the  discovery  of  high  explosive,  dynamite.    I  remarkei 
that  the  first  part  of  this  process — the  hurting  and  thu 
healing  of  the  finger — might  happen  to  anybody  but  no; 
everybody  would  be  led  to  discovery  thereby.     That  i 
true  enough,  but  we  must  not  think  that  the  Swedisl 
chemist  was  the  only  observant  man  in  the  world 
About  this  same  time  a  young  man  in  Albany,  name* 
John  Wesley  Hyatt,  got  a  sore  finger  and  resorted  t 
the  same  remedy  and  was  led  to  as  great  a  discovery 
His  father  was  a  blacksmith  and  his  education  was  cor 
fined  to  what  he  could  get  at  the  seminary  of  Eddj 
town.  New  York,  before  he  was  sixteen.     At  that  ag 
he  set  out  for  the  West  to  make  his  fortune.     He  mad 
it,  but  after  a  long,  hard  struggle.     His  trade  of  typ( 
setter  gave  him  a  living  in  Illinois,  New  York  or  whei 
ever  he  wanted  to  go,  but  he  was  not  content  with  hi 
wages  or  his  hours.     However,  he  did  not  strike  to  r< 
duce  his  hours  or  increase  his  wages.     On  the  contrar 
he  increased  his  working  time  and  used  it  to  increas 
his  income.     He  spent  his  nights  and  Sundays  in  mal 
ing  billiard  balls,  not  at  all  the  sort  of  thing  you  woul 
expect  of  a  young  man  of  his  Christian  name.    Bt 
working  with  billiard  balls  is  more  profitable  than  pla} 

128 


SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS  129 

ing  with  them — though  that  is  not  the  sort  of  thing  you 
would  expect  a  man  of  my  surname  to  say.  Hyatt  had 
seen  in  the  papers  an  offer  of  a  prize  of  $10,000  for  the 
discovery  of  a  satisfactory  substitute  for  ivory  in  the 
making  of  billiard  balls  and  he  set  out  to  get  that  prize. 
I  don't  know  whether  he  ever  got  it  or  not,  but  I  have 
in  my  hand  a  newly  published  circular  announcing  that 
Mr.  Hyatt  has  now  perfected  a  process  for  making  bil- 
liard balls  ** better  than  ivory.''  Meantime  he  has 
turned  out  several  hundred  other  inventions,  many  of 
them  much  more  useful  and  profitable,  but  I  imagine 
that  he  takes  less  satisfaction  in  any  of  them  than  he 
does  in  having  solved  the  problem  that  he  undertook 
fifty  years  ago. 

The  reason  for  the  prize  was  that  the  game  on  the 
billiard  table  was  getting  more  popular  and  the  game  in 
the  African  jungle  was  getting  scarcer,  especially  ele- 
phants having  tusks  more  than  2  7/16  inches  in  diam- 
eter. The  raising  of  elephants  is  not  an  industry  that 
promises  as  quick  returns  as  raising  chickens  or  Bel- 
gian hares.  To  make  a  ball  having  exactly  the  weight, 
color  and  resiliency  to  which  billiard  players  have  be- 
come accustomed  seemed  an  impossibility.  Hyatt 
tried  compressed  wood,  but  while  he  did  not  succeed 
in  making  billiard  balls  he  did  build  up  a  profitable 
business  in  stamped  checkers  and  dominoes. 

Setting  t3rpe  in  the  way  they  did  it  in  the  sixties  was 
hard  on  the  hands.  And  if  the  skin  got  worn  thin  or 
broken  the  dirty  lead  type  were  liable  to  infect  the 
fingers.  One  day  in  1863  Hyatt,  finding  his  fingers 
were  getting  raw,  went  to  the  cupboard  where  was  kept 
the  *  liquid  cuticle"  used  by  the  printers.    But  when 


130  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

he  got  there  he  found  it  was  bare,  for  the  vial  had 
tipped  over — you  know  how  easily  they  tip  over — and 
the  collodion  had  run  out  and  solidified  on  the  shelf. 
Possibly  Hyatt  was  annoyed,  but  if  so  he  did  not  waste 
time  raging  around  the  office  to  find  out  who  tipped 
over  that  bottle.  Instead  he  pulled  off  from  the  wood 
a  bit  of  the  dried  film  as  big  as  his  thumb  nail  and 
examined  it  with  that  **  'satiable  curtiosity,''  as  Kip- 
ling calls  it,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  born  in- 
ventor. He  found  it  tough  and  elastic  and  it  occurred 
to  him  that  it  might  be  worth  $10,000.  It  turned  out  to 
be  worth  many  times  that. 

Collodion,  as  I  have  explained  in  previous  chapters, 
is  a  solution  in  ether  and  alcohol  of  guncotton  (other- 
wise known  as  pyroxylin  or  nitrocellulose),  which  is 
made  by  the  action  of  nitric  acid  on  cotton.  Hyatt 
tried  mixing  the  collodion  with  ivory  powder,  also 
using  it  to  cover  balls  of  the  necessary  weight  and  so- 
lidity, but  they  did  not  work  very  well  and  besides  were 
explosive.  A  Colorado  saloon  keeper  wrote  in  to  com- 
plain that  one  of  the  billiard  players  had  touched  a 
ball  with  a  lighted  cigar,  which  set  it  off  and  every  man 
in  the  room  had  drawn  his  gun. 

The  trouble  with  the  dissolved  guncotton  was  that  it 
could  not  be  molded.  It  did  not  swell  up  and  set;  it 
merely  dried  up  and  shrunk.  When  the  solvent  evapo- 
rated it  left  a  wrinkled,  shriveled,  horny  film,  satisfac- 
tory to  the  surgeon  but  not  to  the  man  who  wanted  to 
make  balls  and  hairpins  and  knife  handles  out  of  it. 
In  England  Alexander  Parke s  began  working  on  the 
problem  in  1855  and  stuck  to  it  for  ten  years  before  he, 
or  rather  his  backers,  gave  up.    He  tried  mixing  in 


SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS  131 

various  things  to  stiffen  up  the  pyroxylin.  Of  these, 
camphor,  which  he  tried  in  1865,  worked  the  best,  but 
since  he  used  castor  oil  to  soften  the  mass  articles  made 
of  **parkesine'*  did  not  hold  up  in  all  weathers. 

Another  Englishman,  Daniel  Spill,  an  associate  of 
Parkes,  took  up  the  problem  where  he  had  dropped  it 
and  turned  out  a  better  product,  ** xylonite,''  though 
still  sticking  to  the  idea  that  castor  oil  was  necessary 
to  get  the  two  solids,  the  guncotton  and  the  camphor, 
together. 

But  Hyatt,  hearing  that  camphor  could  be  used  and 
not  knowing  enough  about  what  others  had  done  to  fol- 
low their  false  trails,  simply  mixed  his  camphor  and 
guncotton  together  without  any  solvent  and  put  the 
mixture  in  a  hot  press.  The  two  solids  dissolved  one 
another  and  when  the  press  was  opened  there  was  a 
clear,  solid,  homogeneous  block  of — ^what  he  named — 
*' celluloid.''  The  problem  was  solved  and  in  the  sim- 
plest imaginable  way.  Tissue  paper,  that  is,  cellulose, 
is  treated  with  nitric  acid  in  the  presence  of  sulfuric 
acid.  The  nitration  is  not  carried  so  far  as  to  produce 
the  guncotton  used  in  explosives  but  only  far  enough  to 
make  a  soluble  nitrocellulose  or  pyroxylin.  This  is 
pulped  and  mixed  with  half  the  quantity  of  camphor, 
pressed  into  cakes  and  dried.  If  this  mixture  is  put 
into  steam-heated  molds  and  subjected  to  hydraulic 
pressure  it  takes  any  desired  form.  The  process  re- 
mains essentially  the  same  as  was  worked  out  by  the 
Hyatt  brothers  in  the  factory  they  set  up  in  Newark  in 
1872  and  some  of  their  original  machines  are  still  in 
use.  But  this  protean  plastic  takes  innumerable  forms 
and  almost  as  many  names.     Each  factory  has  its  own 


132  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

secrets  and  lays  claim  to  peculiar  merits.  The  funda- 
mental product  itself  is  not  patented,  so  trade  names 
are  copyrighted  to  protect  the  product.  I  have  al- 
ready mentioned  three,  **parkesine,"  ** xylonite''  and 
** celluloid,''  and  I  may  add,  without  exhausting  the  list 
of  species  belonging  to  this  genus,  **viscoloid,"  *4ith- 
oxyl,"  '*fiberloid,"  **coraline,"  ^^eburite,"  **pulver- 
oid,"  **ivorine,"  **pergamoid,"  **duroid,"  **ivortus," 
** crystalloid,"  **transparene,"  *Mitnoid,"  **petroid," 
**pasbosene,"  '^cellonite"  and  **pyralin." 

Celluloid  can  be  given  any  color  or  colors  by  mixing 
in  aniline  dyes  or  metallic  pigments.  The  color  may  be 
confined  to  the  surface  or  to  the  interior  or  pervade  the 
whole.  If  the  nitrated  tissue  paper  is  bleached  the  cel- 
luloid is  transparent  or  colorless.  In  that  case  it  is 
necessary  to  add  an  antacid  such  as  urea  to  prevent  its 
getting  yellow  or  opaque.  To  make  it  opaque  and  less 
inflammable  oxides  or  chlorides  of  zinc,  aluminum, 
magnesium,  etc.,  are  mixed  in. 

Without  going  into  the  question  of  their  variations 
and  relative  merits  we  may  consider  the  advantages  of 
the  pyroxylin  plastics  in  general.  Here  we  have  a  new 
substance,  the  product  of  the  creative  genius  of  man, 
and  therefore  adaptable  to  his  needs.  It  is  hard  but 
light,  tough  but  elastic,  easily  made  and  tolerably 
cheap.  Heated  to  the  boiling  point  of  water  it  becomes 
soft  and  flexible.  It  can  be  turned,  carved,  ground, 
poli-shed,  bent,  pressed,  stamped,  molded  or  blown.  To 
make  a  block  of  any  desired  size  simply  pile  up  the 
sheets  and  put  them  in  a  hot  press.  To  get  sheets  of 
any  desired  thickness,  simply  shave  them  off  the  block. 
To  make  a  tube  of  any  desired  size,  shape  or  thickness 


SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS  133 

squirt  out  the  mixture  through  a  ring-shaped  hole  or 
roll  the  sheets  around  a  hot  bar.  Cut  the  tube  into 
sections  and  you  have  rings  to  be  shaped  and  stamped 
into  box  bodies  or  napkin  rings.  Print  words  or  pic- 
tures on  a  celluloid  sheet,  put  a  thin  transparent  sheet 
over  it  and  weld  them  together,  then  you  have  some- 
thing like  the  horn  book  of  our  ancestors,  but  better. 

Nowadays  such  things  as  celluloid  and  pyralin  can 
be  sold  under  their  own  name,  but  in  the  early  days  the 
artificial  plastics,  like  every  new  thing,  had  to  resort  to 
cainouflage,  a  very  humiliating  expedient  since  in  some 
cases  they  were  better  than  the  material  they  were 
forced  to  imitate.  Tortoise  shell,  for  instance,  cracks, 
splits  and  twists,  but  a  *^  tortoise  shelP'  comb  of  cellu- 
loid looks  as  well  and  lasts  better.  Horn  articles  are 
limited  to  size  of  the  ceratinous  appendages  that  can  be 
borne  on  the  animal's  head,  but  an  imitation  of  horn 
can  be  made  of  any  thickness  by  wrapping  celluloid 
sheets  about  a  cone.  Ivory,  which  also  has  a  laminated 
structure,  may  be  imitated  by  rolling  together  alternate 
white  opaque  and  colorless  translucent  sheets.  Some 
of  the  sheets  are  wrinkled  in  order  to  produce  the  knots 
and  irregularities  of  the  grain  of  natural  ivory.  Man's 
chief  difficulty  in  all  such  work  is  to  imitate  the  imper- 
fections of  nature.  His  whites  are  too  white,  his  sur- 
faces are  too  smooth,  his  shapes  are  too  regular,  his 
products  are  too  pure. 

The  precious  red  coral  of  the  Mediterranean  can  be 
perfectly  imitated  by  taking  a  cast  of  a  coral  branch 
and  filling  in  the  mold  with  celluloid  of  the  same  color 
and  hardness.  The  clear  luster  of  amber,  the  dead 
black  of  ebony,  the  cloudiness  of  onyx,  the  opalescence 


134  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

\ 
of  alabaster,  the  glow  of  carnelian — once  confined  to 
the  selfish  enjoyment  of  the  rich — are  now  within  the 
reach  of  every  one,  thanks  to  this  chameleon  material. 
Mosaics  may  be  multiplied  indefinitely  by  laying  to- 
gether sheets  and  sticks  of  celluloid,  suitably  cut  and 
colored  to  make  up  the  picture,  fusing  the  mass,  and 
then  shaving  off  thin  layers  from  the  end.  That  chef 
d'ceuvre  of  the  Venetian  glass  makers,  the  Battle  of 
Isus,  from  the  House  of  the  Faun  in  Pompeii,  can  be 
reproduced  as  fast  as  the  machine  can  shave  them  off 
the  block.  And  the  tesserae  do  not  fall  out  like  those 
you  bought  on  the  Rialto. 

The  process  thus  does  for  mosaics,  ivory  and  coral 
what  printing  does  for  pictures.  It  is  a  mechanical 
multiplier  and  only  by  such  means  can  we  ever  attain 
to  a  state  of  democratic  luxury.  The  product,  in  cases 
where  the  imitation  is  accurate,  is  equally  valuable 
except  to  those  who  delight  in  thinking  that  coral  in- 
sects, Italian  craftsmen  and  elephants  have  been  labor- 
ing for  years  to  put  a  trinket  into  their  hands.  The 
Lord  may  be  trusted  to  deal  with  such  selfish  souls  ac- 
cording to  their  deserts. 

But  it  is  very  low  praise  for  a  synthetic  product  that 
it  can  pass  itself  off,  more  or  less  acceptably,  as  a  natu- 
ral product.  If  that  is  all  we  could  do  without  it.  It 
must  be  an  improvement  in  some  respects  on  anything 
to  be  found  in  nature  or  it  does  not  represent  a  real 
advance.  So  celluloid  and  its  congeners  are  not  con- 
fined to  the  shapes  of  shell  and  coral  and  crystal,  or  to 
the  grain  of  ivory  and  wood  and  horn,  the  colors  of 
amber  and  amethyst  and  lapis  lazuli,  but  can  be  given 


SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS  135 

forms  and  textures  and  tints  tliat  were  never  known 
before  1869. 

Let  me  see  now,  have  I  mentioned  all  the  uses  of  cel- 
luloid? Oh,  no,  there  are  handles  for  canes,  umbrellas, 
mirrors  and  brushes,  knives,  whistles,  toys,  blown  ani- 
mals, card  cases,  chains,  charms,  brooches,  badges, 
bracelets,  rings,  book  bindings,  hairpins,  campaign  but- 
tons, cuif  and  collar  buttons,  cuffs,  collars  and  dickies, 
tags,  cups,  knobs,  paper  cutters,  picture  frames,  chess- 
men, pool  balls,  ping  pong  balls,  piano  keys,  dental 
plates,  masks  for  disfigured  faces,  penholders,  eyeglass 
frames,  goggles,  playing  cards — and  you  can  carry  on 
the  list  as  far  as  you  like. 

Celluloid  has  its  disadvantages.  You  may  mold,  you 
may  color  the  stuff  as  you  will,  the  scent  of  the  cam- 
phor will  cling  around  it  still.  This  is  not  usually 
objectionable  except  where  the  celluloid  is  trying  to 
pass  itself  off  for  something  else,  in  which  case  it  de- 
serves no  sympathy.  It  is  attacked  and  dissolved  by 
hot  acids  and  alkalies.  It  softens  up  when  heated, 
which  is  handy  in  shaping  it  though  not  so  desirable 
afterward.  But  the  worst  of  its  failings  is  its  combus- 
tibility. It  is  not  explosive,  but  it  takes  fire  from  a 
flame  and  burns  furiously  with  clouds  of  black  smoke. 

But  celluloid  is  only  one  of  many  plastic  substances 
that  have  been  introduced  to  the  present  generation. 
A  new  and  important  group  of  them  is  now  being 
opened  up,  the  so-called  ** condensation  products.''  If 
you  will  take  down  any  old  volume  of  chemical  research 
you  will  find  occasionally  words  to  this  effect :  *  *  The 
reaction  resulted  in  nothing  but  an  insoluble  resin 


136  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

which  was  not  further  investigated.''  Such  a  passage 
would  be  marked  with  a  tear  if  chemists  were  given  to 
crying  over  their  failures.  For  it  is  the  epitaph  of  a 
buried  hope.  It  likely  meant  the  loss  of  months  of 
labor.  The  reason  the  chemist  did  not  do  anything 
further  with  the  gummy  stuff  that  stuck  up  his  test 
tube  was  because  he  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  it. 
It  could  not  be  dissolved,  it  could  not  be  crystallized, 
it  could  not  be  distilled,  therefore  it  could  not  be  puri- 
fied, analyzed  and  identified. 

What  had  happened  was  in  most  cases  this.  The 
molecule  of  the  compound  that  the  chemist  was  trying 
to  make  had  combined  with  others  of  its  kind  to  form 
a  molecule  too  big  to  be  managed  by  such  means. 
Financiers  call  the  process  a  ** merger.''  Chemists  call 
it  ** polymerization."  The  resin  was  a  molecular 
trust,  indissoluble,  uncontrollable  and  contaminating 
everything  it  touched. 

But  chemists — like  governments — have  learned  wis- 
dom in  recent  years.  They  have  not  yet  discovered  in 
all  cases  how  to  undo  the  process  of  polymerization,  or, 
if  you  prefer  the  financial  phrase,  how  to  unscramble 
the  eggs.  But  they  have  found  that  these  molecular 
mergers  are  very  useful  things  in  their  way.  For  in- 
stance there  is  a  liquid  known  as  isoprene  (C^Hg). 
This  on  heating  or  standing  turns  into  a  gum,  that  is 
nothing  less  than  rubber,  which  is  some  multiple  of 
CgHg. 

For  another  instance  there  is  formaldehyde,  an  acrid 
smelling  gas,  used  as  a  disinfectant.  This  has  the  sim- 
plest possible  formula  for  a  carbohydrate,  CHoO.  But 
in  the  leaf  of  a  plant  this  molecule  multiplies  itself  by 


SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS  137 

six  and  turns  into  a  sweet  solid  glucose  (CgHigOe),  or 
with  the  loss  of  water  into  starch  (CeHioOg)  or  cellulose 
(CeH.oOJ. 

But  formaldehyde  is  so  insatiate  that  it  not  only  com- 
bines with  itself  but  seizes  upon  other  substances,  par- 
ticularly those  having  an  acquisitive  nature  like  its 
own.  Such  a  substance  is  carbolic  acid  (phenol)  which, 
as  we  all  know,  is  used  as  a  disinfectant  like  formalde- 
hyde because  it,  too,  has  the  power  of  attacking  decom- 
posable organic  matter.  Now  Prof.  Adolf  von  Baeyer 
discovered  in  1872  that  when  phenol  and  formaldehyde 
were  brought  into  contact  they  seized  upon  one  another 
and  formed  a  combine  of  unusual  tenacity,  that  is,  a 
resin.  But  as  I  have  said,  chemists  in  those  days  were 
shy  of  resins.  Kleeberg  in  1891  tried  to  make  some- 
thing out  of  it  and  W.  H.  Story  in  1895  went  so  far  as 
to  name  the  product  **resinite,"  but  nothing  came  of  it 
until  1909  when  L.  H.  Baekeland  undertook  a  serious 
and  systematic  study  of  this  reaction  in  New  York. 
Baekeland  was  a  Belgian  chemist,  born  at  Ghent  in 
1863  and  professor  at  Bruges.  While  a  student  at 
Ghent  he  took  up  photography  as  a  hobby  and  began  to 
work  on  the  problem  of  doing  away  with  the  dark-room 
by  producing  a  printing  paper  that  could  be  developed 
under  ordinary  light.  When  he  came  over  to  America 
in  1889  he  brought  his  idea  with  him  and  four  years 
later  turned  out  '^Velox,*'  with  which  doubtless  the 
reader  is  familiar.  Velox  was  never  patented  because, 
as  Dr.  Baekeland  explained  in  his  speech  of  accept- 
ance of  the  Perkin  medal  from  the  chemists  of  Amer- 
ica, lawsuits  are  too  expensive.  Manufacturers  seem 
to  be  coming  generally  to  the  opinion  that  a  synthetic 


138  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

name  copyrighted  as  a  trademark  affords  better  pro-| 
tection  than  a  patent.  j 

Later  Dr.  Baekeland  turned  his  attention  to  the 
phenol  condensation  products,  working  gradually  up 
from  test  tubes  to  ton  vats  according  to  his  motto: 
^'Make  your  mistakes  on  a  small  scale  and  your  profits 
on  a  large  scale.  ^ '  He  found  that  when  equal  weights 
of  phenol  and  formaldehyde  were  mixed  and  warmed  in 
the  presence  of  an  alkaline  catalytic  agent  the  solution 
separated  into  two  layers,  the  upper  aqueous  and  the 
lower  a  resinous  precipitate.  This  resin  was  soft,  vis- 
cous and  soluble  in  alcohol  or  acetone.  But  if  it  was 
heated  under  pressure  it  changed  into  another  and  a 
new  kind  of  resin  that  was  hard,  inelastic,  unplastic, 
infusible  and  insoluble.  The  chemical  name  of  this 
product  is  ^*  polymerized  oxybenzyl  methylene  glycol 
anhydride,  ^ '  but  nobody  calls  it  that,  not  even  chemists. 
It  is  called  ^^Bakelite''  after  its  inventor. 

The  two  stages  in  its  preparation  are  convenient  in 
many  ways.  For  instance,  porous  wood  may  be  soaked 
in  the  soft  resin  and  then  by  heat  and  pressure  it  is 
changed  to  the  bakelite  form  and  the  wood  comes  out 
with  a  hard  finish  that  may  be  given  the  brilliant  polish 
of  Japanese  lacquer.  Paper,  cardboard,  cloth,  wood 
pulp,  sawdust,  asbestos  and  the  like  may  be  impreg- 
nated with  the  resin,  producing  tough  and  hard  mate- 
rial suitable  for  various  purposes.  Brass  work 
painted  with  it  and  then  baked  at  300°  F.  acquires  a 
lacquered  surface  that  is  unaffected  by  soap.  Forced 
in  powder  or  sheet  form  into  molds  under  a  pressure 
of  1200  to  2000  pounds  to  the  square  inch  it  takes  the 
most  delicate  impressions.    Billiard  balls  of  bakelite 


SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS  139 

ire  claimed  to  be  better  than  ivory  because,  having  no 
^rain,  they  do  not  swell  unequally  with  heat  and  hu- 
nidity  and  so  lose  their  sphericity.  Pipestems  and 
)eads  of  bakelite  have  the  clear  brilliancy  of  amber  and 
reater  strength.  Fountain  pens  made  of  it  are  trans- 
)arent  so  you  can  see  how  much  ink  you  have  left.  A 
lew  and  enlarging  field  for  bakelite  and  allied  products 

the  making  of  noiseless  gears  for  automobiles  and 
>ther  machinery,  also  of  air-plane  propellers. 

Celluloid  is  more  plastic  and  elastic  than  bakelite. 
t  is  therefore  more  easily  worked  in  sheets  and  small 
bjects.  Celluloid  can  be  made  perfectly  transparent 
nd  colorless  while  bakelite  is  confined  to  the  range 
letween  a  clear  amber  and  an  opaque  brown  or  black. 
)n  the  other  hand  bakelite  has  the  advantage  in  being 
asteless,  odorless,  inert,  insoluble  and  non-inflamma- 
le.  This  last  quality  and  its  high  electrical  resistance 
pive  bakelite  its  chief  field  of  usefulness.  Electricity 
ras  discovered  by  the  Greeks,  who  found  that  amber 
electron)  when  rubbed  would  pick  up  straws.  This 
Qeans  simply  that  amber,  like  all  such  resinous  sub- 
tances,  natural  or  artificial,  is  a  non-conductor  or  di- 
lectric  and  does  not  carry  off  and  scatter  the  electric- 
ty  collected  on  the  surface  by  the  friction.  Bakelite  is 
ised  in  its  liquid  form  for  impregnating  coils  to  keep 
he  wires  from  shortcircuiting  and  in  its  solid  form  for 
lommutators,  magnetos,  switch  blocks,  distributors, 
md  all  sorts  of  electrical  apparatus  for  automobiles, 
elephones,  wireless  telegraphy,  electric  lighting,  etc. 

Bakelite,  however,  is  only  one  of  an  indefinite  num- 
)er  of  such  condensation  products.  As  Baeyer  said 
ong  ago :    *  ^  It  seems  that  all  the  aldehydes  will,  under 


140  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

suitable  circumstances,  unite  with  the  aromatic  hydro- 
carbons to  form  resins.''  So  instead  of  phenol,  other 
coal  tar  products  such  as  cresol,  naphthol  or  benzene 
itself  may  be  used.  The  carbon  links  ( — CHg — ,  meth- 
ylene) necessary  to  hook  these  carbon  rings  together 
may  be  obtained  from  other  substances  than  the  alde- 
hydes, for  instance  from  the  amines,  or  ammonia  de- 
rivatives. Three  chemists,  L.  V.  Redman,  A.  J.  Weith 
and  F.  P.  Broek,  working  in  1910  on  the  Industrial 
Fellowships  of  the  late  Robert  Kennedy  Duncan  at  the 
University  of  Kansas,  developed  a  process  using  for- 
min  instead  of  formaldehyde.  Formin — or,  if  you  in- 
sist upon  its  full  name,  hexa-methylene-tetramine — is  a : 
sugar-like  substance  with  a  fish-like  smell.  This  mixed 
with  crystallized  carbolic  acid  and  slightly  warmed  I 
melts  to  a  golden  liquid  that  sets  on  pouring  into  molds. 
It  is  still  plastic  and  can  be  bent  into  any  desired  shape,  i 
but  on  further  heating  it  becomes  hard  without  the  need 
of  pressure.  Ammonia  is  given  off  in  this  process  in- 
stead of  water  which  is  the  by-product  in  the  case  of 
formaldehyde.  The  product  is  similar  to  bakelite,  ex- 
actly how  similar  is  a  question  that  the  courts  will  have 
to  decide.  The  inventors  threatened  to  call  it  Phenyls 
endeka-saligeno-saligenin,  but,  rightly  fearing  that  this 
would  interfere  with  its  salability,  they  have  named  it 
**redmanol." 

A  phenolic  condensation  product  closely  related  to 
bakelite  and  redmanol  is  condensite,  the  invention  of; 
Jonas  Walter  Aylesworth.  Aylesworth  was  trained 
in  what  he  referred  to  as  *^the  greatest  university  of 
the  world,  the  Edison  laboratory."  He  entered  this 
university  at  the  age  of  nineteen  at  a  salary  of  $3  a 


SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS  141 

week,  but  Edison  soon  found  that  he  had  in  his  new  boy 
an  assistant  who  could  stand  being  shut  up  in  the  labor- 
atory working  day  and  night  as  long  as  he  could. 
After  nine  years  of  close  association  with  Edison  he 
set  up  a  little  laboratory  in  his  own  back  yard  to  work 
out  new  plastics.  He  found  that  by  acting  on  naph- 
thalene— the  moth-ball  stuff — ^with  chlorine  he  got  a 
series  of  useful  products  called  *'halowaxes/'  The 
lower  chlorinated  products  are  oils,  which  may  be  used 
for  impregnating  paper  or  soft  wood,  making  it  non- 
inflammable  and  impregnable  to  water.  If  four  atoms 
ft  chlorine  enter  the  naphthalene  molecule  the  product 
K  a  hard  wax  that  rings  like  a  metal. 
'  Condensite  is  anhydrous  and  infusible,  and  like  its 
rivals  finds  its  chief  employment  in  the  insulation  parts 
of  electrical  apparatus.  The  records  of  the  Edison 
phonograph  are  made  of  it.  So  are  the  buttons  of  our 
blue-jackets.  The  Government  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  ordered  40,000  goggles  in  condensite  frames  to 
protect  the  eyes  of  our  gunners  from  the  glare  and  acid 
fumes. 

The  various  synthetics  played  an  important  part  in 
the  war.  According  to  an  ancient  military  pun  the 
endurance  of  soldiers  depends  upon  the  strength  of 
their  soles.  The  new  compound  rubber  soles  were 
found  useful  in  our  army  and  the  Germans  attribute 
their  success  in  making  a  little  leather  go  a  long  way 
during  the  late  war  to  the  use  of  a  new  synthetic  tan- 
ning material  known  as  *  *  neradol. '  ^  There  are  various 
forms  of  this.  Some  are  phenolic  condensation  prod- 
ucts of  formaldehyde  like  those  we  have  been  consid- 
ering, but  some  use  coal-tar  compounds  having  no 


142  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

phenol  groups,  such  as  naphthalene  sulfonic  acid 
These  are  now  being  made  in  England  under  such 
names  as  ^^paradol,''  *^cresyntan"  and  ^^syntan. 
They  have  the  advantage  of  the  natural  tannins  such 
as  bark  in  that  they  are  of  known  strength  and  can 
be  varied  to  suit. 

This  very  grasping  compound,  formaldehyde,  will 
attack  almost  anything,  even  molecules  many  times  its 
size.  Gelatinous  and  albuminous  substances  of  all 
sorts  are  solidified  by  it.  Glue,  skimmed  milk,  blood, 
eggs,  yeast,  brewer's  slops,  may  by  this  magic  agent  be 
rescued  from  waste  and  reappear  in  our  buttons,  hair- 
pins, roofing,  phonographs,  shoes  or  shoe-polish.  The 
French  have  made  great  use  of  casein  hardened  by  for- 
maldehyde into  what  is  known  as  ^'galalith''  (i.  e.,  milk- 
stone).  This  is  harder  than  celluloid  and  non-inflam- 
mable, but  has  the  disadvantages  of  being  more  brittle 
and  of  absorbing  moisture.  A  mixture  of  casein  anc 
celluloid  has  something  of  the  merits  of  both. 

The  Japanese,  as  we  should  expect,  are  using  the 
juice  of  the  soy  bean,  familiar  as  a  condiment  to  a! 
who  patronize  chop-sueys  or  use  Worcestershire  sauce 
The  soy  glucine  coagulated  by  formalin  gives  a  plastic 
said  to  be  better  and  cheaper  than  celluloid.  Its  in 
ventor,  S.  Sato,  of  Sendai  University,  has  named  it 
according  to  American  precedent,  **Satolite,"  and  haj 
organized  a  million-dollar  Satolite  Company  at  Muko 
jima. 

The  algin  extracted  from  the  Pacific  kelp  can  b< 
used  as  a  rubber  surrogate  for  waterproofing  cloth 
When  combined  with  heavier  alkaline  bases  it  forms  i 
tough  and  elastic  substance  that  can  be  rolled  int< 


SYNTHETIC  PLASTICS  143 

ransparent  sheets  like  celluloid  or  turned  into  buttons 
md  knife  handles. 

In  Australia  when  the  war  shut  off  the  supply  of  tin 
he  Government  commission  appointed  to  devise  means 
)f  preserving  fruits  recommended  the  use  of  cardboard 
ontainers  varnished  with  **magramite."  This  is  a 
lame  the  Australians  coined  for  synthetic  resin  made 
rom  phenol  and  formaldehyde  like  bakelite.  Magra- 
nite  dissolved  in  alcohol  is  painted  on  the  cardboard 
;ans  and  when  these  are  stoved  the  coating  becomes 
nsoluble. 

Tarasoff  has  made  a  series  of  condensation  products 
rom  phenol  and  formaldehyde  with  the  addition  of  sul- 
bnated  oils.  These  are  formed  by  the  action  of  sul- 
uric  acid  on  coconut,  castor,  cottonseed  or  mineral 
)ils.  The  products  of  this  combination  are  white  plas- 
ics,  opaque,  insoluble  and  infusible. 

Since  I  am  here  chiefly  concerned  with  **  Creative 
Chemistry,''  that  is,  with  the  art  of  making  substances 
lot  found  in  nature,  I  have  not  spoken  of  shellac,  as- 
)haltum,  rosin,  ozocerite  and  the  innumerable  gums, 
•esins  and  waxes,  animal,  mineral  and  vegetable,  that 
ire  used  either  by  themselves  or  in  combination  with 
he  synthetics.  What  particular  *^dope"  or  ^^mud^'  is 
ised  to  coat  a  canvas  or  form  a  telephone  receiver  is 
^ften  hard  to  find  out.  The  manufacturer  finds  secrecy 
;afer  than  the  patent  office  and  the  chemist  of  a  rival 
istablishment  is  apt  to  be  baffled  in  his  attempt  to  ana- 
yze  and  imitate.  But  we  of  the  outside  world  are  not 
t  concerned  with  this,  though  we  are  interested  in  the 
nanifold  applications  of  these  new  materials. 

There  seems  to  be  no  limit  to  these  compounds  and 


144  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

every  week  the  journals  report  new  processes  and  pal 
ents.  But  we  must  not  allow  the  new  ones  to  crow- 
out  the  remembrance  of  the  oldest  and  most  famou 
of  the  synthetic  plasters,  hard  rubber,  to  which  a  sepa 
rate  chapter  must  be  devoted. 


vin 

THE  EACE  FOR  RUBBER 

There  is  one  law  that  regulates  all  animate  and  in- 
animate things.  It  is  formulated  in  various  ways,  for 
instance : 

Running  down  a  hill  is  easy.  In  Latin  it  reads, 
facilis  descensus  Averni,  Herbert  Spencer  calls  it  the 
dissolution  of  definite  coherent  heterogeneity  into  in- 
definite incoherent  homogeneity.  Mother  Goose  ex- 
presses it  in  the  fable  of  Humpty  Dumpty,  and  the  busi- 
ness man  extracts  the  moral  as,  **  You  can't  unscramble 
an  Qgg,''^  The  theologian  calls  it  the  dogma  of 
natural  depravity.  The  physicist  calls  it  the  second 
law  of  thermod}-aamics.  Clausius  formulates  it  ,as 
'^The  entropy  of  the  world  tends  toward  a  maxi- 
mum.'' It  is  easier  to  smash  up  than  to  build  up. 
Children  find  that  this  is  true  of  their  toys ;  the  Bolshe- 
viki  have  found  that  it  is  true  of  a  civilization.  So, 
too,  the  chemist  knows  analysis  is  easier  than  synthesis 
and  that  creative  chemistry  is  the  highest  branch  of  his 
art. 

This  explains  why  chemists  discovered  how  to  take 
rubber  apart  over  sixty  years  before  they  could  find 
out  how  to  put  it  together.  The  first  is  easy.  Just 
put  some  raw  rubber  into  a  retort  and  heat  it.  If  you 
can  stand  the  odor  you  will  observe  the  caoutchouc 
decomposing  and  a  benzine-like  liquid  distilling  over. 

U5 


146  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

This  is  called  **isoprene.''  Any  Freshman  chemist 
could  write  the  reaction  for  this  operation.  It  is 
simply 

caoutchouc  isoprene 

That  is,  one  molecule  of  the  gum  splits  up  into  two 
molecules  of  the  liquid.  It  is  just  as  easy  to  write  the 
reaction  in  the  reverse  directions,  as  2  isoprene  "~^  1 
caoutchouc,  but  nobody  could  make  it  go  in  that  direc- 
tion. Yet  it  could  be  done.  It  had  been  done.  But 
the  man  who  did  it  did  not  know  how  he  did  it  and 
could  not  do  it  again.  Professor  Tilden  in  May,  1892, 
read  a  paper  before  the  Birmingham  Philosophical 
Society  in  which  he  said: 

I  was  surprised  a  few  weeks  ago  at  finding  the  contents  of 
the  bottles  containing  isoprene  from  turpentine  entirely 
changed  in  appearance.  In  place  of  a  limpid,  colorless  liquid 
the  bottles  contained  a  dense  syrup  in  which  were  floating 
several  large  masses  of  a  yellowish  color.  Upon  examination 
this  turned  out  to  be  India  rubber. 

But  neither  Professor  Tilden  nor  any  one  else  could 
repeat  this  accidental  metamorphosis.  It  was  tanta- 
lizing, for  the  world  was  willing  to  pay  $2,000,000,000 
a  year  for  rubber  and  the  forests  of  the  Amazon  and 
Congo  were  failing  to  meet  the  demand.  A  large 
share  of  these  millions  would  have  gone  to  any  chemist 
who  could  find  out  how  to  make  synthetic  rubber  and 
make  it  cheaply  enough.  With  such  a  reward  of  fame 
and  fortune  the  competition  among  chemists  was  in- 
tense. It  took  the  form  of  an  international  contest 
in  which  England  and  Germany  were  neck  and  neck.] 


THE  EACE  FOR  RUBBER  147 


Courtesy  of  the  "India  Rubber  World." 

What  goes  into  rubber  and  what  is  made  out  of  it 


148  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

The  English,  who  had  been  beaten  by  the  Germans 
in  the  dye  business  where  they  had  the  start,  were 
determined  not  to  lose  in  this.  Prof.  W.  H.  Perkin, 
of  Manchester  University,  was  one  of  the  most  eager, 
for  he  was  inspired  by  a  personal  gnidge  against  the 
Germans  as  well  as  by  patriotism  and  scientific  zeal. 
It  was  his  father  who  had,  fifty  years  before,  dis- 
covered mauve,  the  first  of  the  anilin  dyes,  but  England 
could  not  hold  the  business  and  its  rich  rewards  went 
over  to  Germany.  So  in  1909  a  corps  of  chemists 
set  to  work  under  Professor  Perkin  in  the  Manchester 
laboratories  to  solve  the  problem  of  sjnithetic  rubber. 
What  reagent  could  be  found  that  would  reverse  the 
reaction  and  convert  the  liquid  isoprene  into  the  solid 
rubber?  It  was  discovered,  by  accident,  we  may  say, 
but  it  should  be  understood  that  such  advantageous 
accidents  happen  only  to  those  who  are  working  for 
them  and  know  how  to  utilize  them.  In  July,  1910, 
Dr.  Matthews,  who  had  charge  of  the  research,  set 
some  isoprene  to  drying  over  metallic  sodium,  a 
common  laboratory  method  of  freeing  a  liquid  from  the 
last  traces  of  water.  In  September  he  found  that  the 
flask  was  filled  with  a  solid  mass  of  real  rubber  instead 
of  the  voMile  colorless  liquid  he  had  put  into  it. 

Twenty  years  before  the  discovery  would  have  been 
useless,  for  sodium  was  then  a  rare  and  costly  metal, 
a  little  of  it  in  a  sealed  glass  tube  being  passed  around 
the  chemistry  class  once  a  year  as  a  curiosity,  or  a 
tiny  bit  cut  off  and  dropped  in  water  to  see  what  a  fuss 
it  made.  But  nowadays  metallic  sodium  is  cheaply 
produced  by  the  aid  of  electricity.  The  difficulty  lay 
rather  in  the  cost  of  the  raw  material,  isoprene.    In 


THE  EACE  FOR  RUBBER  149 

industrial  chemistry  it  is  not  sufficient  that  a  thing 
can  be  made ;  it  must  be  made  to  pay.  Isoprene  could 
be  obtained  from  turpentine,  but  this  was  too  expen- 
sive and  limited  in  supply.  It  would  merely  mean  the 
destruction  of  pine  forests  instead  of  rubber  forests. 
Starch  was  finally  decided  upon  as  the  best  material, 
since  this  can  be  obtained  for  about  a  cent  a  pound 
from  potatoes,  corn  and  many  other  sources.  Here, 
however,  the  chemist  came  to  the  end  of  his  rope  and 
had  to  call  the  bacteriologist  to  his  aid.  The  splitting 
of  the  starch  molecule  is  too  big  a  job  for  man;  only 
the  lower  organisms,  the  yeast  plant,  for  example, 
know  enough  to  do  that.  Owing  perhaps  to  the 
entente  cordiale  a  French  biologist  was  called  into  the 
combination,  Professor  Fernbach,  of  the  Pasteur 
Institute,  and  after  eighteen  months '  hard  work  he  dis- 
covered a  process  of  fermentation  by  which  a  large 
amount  of  fusel  oil  can  be  obtained  from  any  starchy 
stuff.  Hitherto  the  aim  in  fermentation  and  distilla- 
tion had  been  to  obtain  as  small  a  proportion  of  fusel 
as  possible,  for  fusel  oil  is  a  mixture  of  the  heavier  al- 
cohols, all  of  them  more  poisonous  and  malodorous  than 
common  alcohol.  But  here,  as  has  often  happened  in 
the  history  of  industrial  chemistry,  the  by-product 
turned  out  to  be  more  valuable  than  the  product. 
From  fusel  oil  by  the  use  of  chlorine  isoprene  can  be 
prepared,  so  the  chain  was  complete. 

But  meanwhile  the  Germans  had  been  making  equal 
progress.  In  1905  Prof.  Karl  Harries,  of  Berlin, 
found  out  the  name  of  the  caoutchouc  molecule.  This 
discovery  was  to  the  chemists  what  the  architect's 
plan  of  a  house  is  to  the  builder.     They  knew  then 


150  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

what  they  were  trying  to  construct  and  could  go  about 
their  task  intelligently. 

Mark  Twain  said  that  he  could  understand  some- 
thing about  how  astronomers  could  measure  the 
distance  of  the  planets,  calculate  their  weights  and  so 
forth,  but  he  never  could  see  how  they  could  find 
out  their  names  even  with  the  largest  telescopes.  This 
is  a  joke  in  astronomy  but  it  is  not  in  chemistry.  For 
when  the  chemist  finds  out  the  structure  of  a  com- 
pound he  gives  it  a  name  which  means  that.  The  stuff' 
came  to  be  called  ** caoutchouc,''  because  that  was  the 
way  the  Spaniards  of  Columbus's  time  caught  the 
Indian  word  **cahuchu."  When  Dr.  Priestley  called 
it  ** India  rubber"  he  told  merely  where  it  came  fromi 
and  what  it  was  good  for.  But  when  Harries  named' 
it  **l-5-dimethyl-cyclo-octadien-l-5"  any  chemist  could! 
draw  a  picture  of  it  and  give  a  guess  as  to  how  it 
could  be  made.  Even  a  person  without  any  knowledge 
of  chemistry  can  get  the  main  point  of  it  by  merely 
looking  at  this  diagram: 


c— c 


I  have  dropped  the  16  H's  or  hydrogen  atoms  of  the' 
formula  for  simplicity's  sake.  They  simply  hook  om 
wherever  they  can.  You  will  see  that  the  isoprenc 
consists  of  a  chain  of  four  carbon  atoms  (represented 
by  the  C's)  with  an  extra  carbon  on  the  side.  In  the 
transformation  of  this  colorless  liquid  into  soft  rubber 


c 

C 

C— 

— C 

1 

-> 

1 

1 

c 

-c 

c 

G 

i! 

L 

4 

isoprene  tum& 

'  into 

caoutchouc 

THE  EACE  FOB  EUBBER  151 

two  of  the  double  linkages  break  and  so  permit  the  two 
chains  of  4  C's  to  unite  to  form  one  ring  of  eight. 
If  you  have  ever  played  ring-around-a-rosy  you  will 
get  the  idea.  In  Chapter  IV  I  explained  that  the 
anilin  dyes  are  built  up  upon  the  benzene  ring  of  six 
carbon  atoms.  The  rubber  ring  consists  of  eight  at 
least  and  probably  more.  Any  substance  containing 
that  peculiar  carbon  chain  with  two  double  links 
C=C — C=C  can  double  up — ^polymerize,  the  chemist 
calls  it — ^into  a  rubber-like  substance.  So  we  may 
have  many  kinds  of  rubber,  some  of  which  may  prove 
to  be  more  useful  than  that  which  happens  to  be  found 
in  nature. 

With  the  structural  formula  of  Harries  as  a  clue 
chemists  all  over  the  world  plunged  into  the  problem 
with  renewed  hope.  The  famous  Bayer  dye  works  at 
Elberfeld  took  it  up  and  there  in  August,  1909,  Dr. 
Fritz  Hofmann  worked  out  a  process  for  the  convert- 
ing of  pure  isoprene  into  rubber  by  heat.  Then  in 
1910  Harries  happened  upon  the  same  sodium  reac- 
tion as  Matthews,  but  when  he  came  to  get  it  patented 
he  found  that  the  Englishman  had  beaten  him  to  the 
patent  office  by  a  few  weeks. 

This  Anglo-German  rivalry  came  to  a  dramatic 
climax  in  1912  at  the  great  hall  of  the  College  of  the 
City  of  New  York  when  Dr.  Carl  Duisberg,  of  the 
Elberfeld  factory,  delivered  an  address  on  the  latest 
achievements  of  the  chemical  industry  before  the 
Eighth — and  the  last  for  a  long  time — International 
Congress  of  Applied  Chemistry.  Duisberg  insisted 
upon  talking  in  German,  although  more  of  his  auditors 
would  have  understood  him  in  English.     He  laid  full 


152  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

emphasis  upon  German  achievements  and  cast  doubt 
upon  the  claim  of  *'the  Englishman  Tilden''  to  have 
prepared  artificial  rubber  in  the  eighties.  Perkin,  of 
Manchester,  confronted  him  with  his  new  process  for 
making  rubber  from  potatoes,  but  Duisberg  countered 
by  proudly  displaying  two  automobile  tires  made  of 
synthetic  rubber  with  which  he  had  made  a  thousand- 
mile  run. 

The  intense  antagonism  between  the  British  and 
German  chemists  at  this  congress  was  felt  by  all 
present,  but  we  did  not  foresee  that  in  two  years  from 
that  date  they  would  be  engaged  in  manufacturing 
poison  gas  to  fire  at  one  another.  It  was,  however, 
realized  that  more  was  at  stake  than  personal  reputa- 
tion and  national  prestige.  Under  pressure  of  the 
new  demand  for  automobiles  the  price  of  rubber 
jumped  from  $1.25  to  $3  a  pound  in  1910,  and  millions 
had  been  invested  in  plantations.  If  Professor  Perkin 
was  right  when  he  told  the  congress  that  by  his  process 
rubber  could  be  made  for  less  than  25  cents  a  pound 
it  meant  that  these  plantations  would  go  the  way  of 
the  indigo  plantations  when  the  Germans  succeeded 
in  making  artificial  indigo.  If  Dr.  Duisberg  was  right 
when  he  told  the  congress  that  synthetic  rubber  would 
** certainly  appear  on  the  market  in  a  very  short  time,'' 
it  meant  that  Germany  in  war  or  peace  would  become 
independent  of  Brazil  in  the  matter  of  rubber  as  she 
had  become  independent  of  Chile  in  the  matter  of 
nitrates. 

As  it  turned  out  both  scientists  were  too  sanguine. 
Synthetic  rubber  has  not  proved  capable  of  displacing 
natural  rubber  by  underbidding  it  nor  even  of  replac- 


THE  RACE  FOB  RUBBER  153 

ing  natural  rubber  when  this  is  shut  out.  When  Ger- 
many was  blockaded  and  the  success  of  her  armies 
depended  on  rubber,  price  was  no  object.  Three 
Danish  sailors  who  were  caught  by  United  States 
officials  trying  to  smuggle  dental  rubber  into  Germany 
confessed  that  they  had  been  selling  it  there  for  gas 
masks  at  $73  a  pound.  The  German  gas  masks  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  war  were  made  without  rubber  and 
were  frail  and  leaky.  They  could  not  have  withstood 
the  new  gases  which  American  chemists  were  prepar- 
ing on  an  unprecedented  scale.  Every  scrap  of  old 
rubber  in  Germany  was  saved  and  worked  over  and 
over  and  diluted  with  fillers  and  surrogates  to  the 
limit  of  elasticity.  Spring  tires  were  substituted  for 
pneumatics.  So  it  is  evident  that  the  supply  of 
synthetic  rubber  could  not  have  been  adequate  or 
satisfactory.  Neither,  on  the  other  hand,  have  the 
British  made  a  success  of  the  Perkin  process,  although 
they  spent  $200,000  on  it  in  the  first  two  years.  But, 
of  course,  there  was  not  the  same  necessity  for  it  as 
in  the  case  of  Germany,  for  England  had  practically 
a  monopoly  of  the  world's  supply  of  natural  rubber 
either  through  owning  plantations  or  controlling  ship- 
ping. If  rubber  could  not  be  manufactured  profitably 
in  Germany  when  the  demand  was  imperative  and 
price  no  consideration  it  can  hardly  be  expected  to 
compete  with  the  natT;iral  under  peace  conditions. 

The  problem  of  synthetic  rubber  has  then  been  solved 
scientifically  but  not  industrially.  It  can  be  made  but 
cannot  be  made  to  pay.  The  difficulty  is  to  find  a  cheap 
enough  material  to  start  with.  We  can  make  rubber 
out  of  potatoes — but  potatoes  have  other  uses.    It 


154  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

would  require  more  land  and  more  valuable  land  to 
raise  the  potatoes  than  to  raise  the  rubber.  We  can 
get  isoprene  by  the  distillation  of  turpentine — but  why 
not  bleed  a  rubber  tree  as  well  as  a  pine  tree  ?  Turpen- 
tine is  neither  cheap  nor  abundant  enough.  Any  kind 
of  wood,  sawdust  for  instance,  can  be  utilized  by  con- 
verting the  cellulose  over  into  sugar  and  fermenting 
this  to  alcohol,  but  the  process  is  not  likely  to  prove 
profitable.  Petroleum  when  cracked  up  to  make  gaso- 
line gives  isoprene  or  other  double-bond  compounds 
that  go  over  into  some  form  of  rubber. 

But  the  most  interesting  and  most  promising  of  all 
is  the  complete  inorganic  synthesis  that  dispenses  with 
the  aid  of  vegetation  and  starts  with  coal  and  lime. 
These  heated  together  in  the  electric  furnace  form 
calcium  carbide  and  this,  as  every  automobilist  knows, 
gives  acetylene  by  contact  with  water.  From  this  gas 
isoprene  can  be  made  and  the  isoprene  converted  into 
rubber  by  sodium,  or  acid  or  alkali  or  simple  heating. 
Acetone,  which  is  also  made  from  acetylene,  can  be 
converted  directly  into  rubber  by  fuming  sulfuric  acid. 
This  seems  to  have  been  the  process  chiefly  used  by  the 
Germans  during  the  war.  Several  carbide  factories 
were  devoted  to  it.  But  the  intermediate  and  by- 
products of  the  process,  such  as  alcohol,  acetic  acid 
and  acetone,  were  in  as  much  demand  for  war  pur- 
poses as  rubber.  The  Germans  made  some  rubber 
from  pitch  imported  from  Sweden.  They  also  found 
a  useful  substitute  in  aluminum  naphthenate  made 
from  Baku  petroleum,  for  it  is  elastic  and  plastic  and 
can  be  vulcanized. 

So  although  rubber  can  be  made  in  many  different 


THE  RACE  FOR  RUBBER  155 

ways  it  is  not  profitable  to  make  it  in  any  of  them.  We 
have  to  rely  still  upon  the  natural  product,  but  we  can 
greatly  improve  upon  the  way  nature  produces  it. 
When  the  call  came  for  more  rubber  for  the  electrical 
and  automobile  industries  the  first  attempt  to  increase 
the  supply  was  to  put  pressure  upon  the  natives  to 
bring  in  more  of  the  latex.  As  a  consequence  the  trees 
were  bled  to  death  and  sometimes  also  the  natives. 
The  Belgian  atrocities  in  the  Congo  shocked  the  civi- 
lized world  and  at  Putumayo  on  the  upper  Amazon  the 
same  cause  produced  the  same  horrible  effects.  But  no 
matter  what  cruelty  was  practiced  the  tropical  forests 
could  not  be  made  to  yield  a  sufficient  increase,  so  the 
cultivation  of  the  rubber  was  begun  by  far-sighted 
men  in  Dutch  Java,  Sumatra  and  Borneo  and  in  British 
Malaya  and  Ceylon. 

Brazil,  feeling  secure  in  the  possession  of  a  natural 
monopoly,  made  no  effort  to  compete  with  these 
parvenus.  It  cost  about  as  much  to  gather  rubber 
from  the  Amazon  forests  as  it  did  to  raise  it  on  a  Malay 
plantation,  that  is,  25  cents  a  pound.  The  Brazilian 
Government  clapped  on  another  25  cents  export  duty 
and  spent  the  money  lavishly.  In  1911  the  treasury 
of  Para  took  in  $2,000,000  from  the  rubber  tax  and  a 
good  share  of  the  money  was  spent  on  a  magnificent 
new  theater  at  Manaos — not  on  setting  out  rubber 
'  trees.  The  result  of  this  rivalry  between  the  collector 
and  the  cultivator  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  the 
decade  1907-1917  the  world's  output  of  plantation 
rubber  increased  from  1000  to  204,000  tons,  while  the 
output  of  wild  rubber  decreased  from  68,000  to  53,000. 
Besides  this  the  plantation  rubber  is  a  cleaner  and 


156  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

more  even  product,  carefully  coagulated  by  acetic  acid 
instead  of  being  smoked  over  a  forest  fire.  It  comes 
in  pale  yellow  sheets  instead  of  big  black  balls  loaded 
with  the  dirt  or  sticks  and  stones  that  the  honest  Indian 
sometimes  adds  to  make  a  bigger  lump.  What  's 
better,  the  man  who  milks  the  rubber  trees  on  a  planta- 
tion may  live  at  home  where  he  can  be  decently  looked 
after.  The  agriculturist  and  the  chemist  may  do  what 
the  philanthropist  and  statesman  could  not  accomplish: 
put  an  end  to  the  cruelties  involved  in  the  international 
struggle  for  *^ black  gold.'' 

The  United  States  uses  three-fourths  of  the  world's 
rubber  output  and  grows  none  of  it.  Wliat  is  the 
use  of  tropical  possessions  if  we  do  not  make  use  of 
them?  The  Philippines  could  grow  all  our  rubber  and 
keep  a  $300,000,000  business  under  our  flag.  Santo 
Domingo,  where  rubber  was  first  discovered,  is  now 
under  our  supervision  and  could  be  enriched  by  the 
industry.  The  Guianas,  where  the  rubber  tree  was 
first  studied,  might  be  purchased.  It  is  chiefly  for  lack 
of  a  definite  colonial  policy  that  our  rubber  industry, 
by  far  the  largest  in  the  world,  has  to  be  dependent 
upon  foreign  sources  for  all  its  raw  materials.  Be- 
cause the  Philippines  are  likely  to  be  cast  off  at  any 
moment,  American  maufacturers  are  placing  their 
plantations  in  the  Dutch  or  British  possessions.  The 
Goodyear  Company  has  secured  a  concession  of  20,000 
acres  near  Medan  in  Dutch  Sumatra. 

While  the  United  States  is  planning  to  relinquish 
its  Pacific  possessions  the  British  have  more  than 
doubled  their  holdings  in  New  Guinea  by  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Kaiser  WiUielm's  Land,  good  rubber  country. 


THE  EACE  FOR  RUBBER  157 

The  British  Malay  States  in  1917  exported  over  $118,- 
000,000  worth  of  plantation-grown  rubber  and  could 
have  sold  more  if  shipping  had  not  been  short  and  pro- 
duction restricted.  Fully  90  per  cent,  of  the  cultivated 
rubber  is  now  grown  in  British  colonies  or  on  British 
plantations  in  the  Dutch  East  Indies.  To  protect  this 
monopoly  an  act  has  been  passed  preventing  foreigners 
from  buying  more  land  in  the  Malay  Peninsula.  The 
Japanese  have  acquired  there  50,000  acres,  on  which 
they  are  growing  more  than  a  million  dollars'  worth 
of  rubber  a  year.  The  British  Tropical  Life  says 
of  the  American  invasion:  **As  America  is  so  ex- 
tremely wealthy  Uncle  Sam  can  well  afford  to  continue 
to  buy  our  rubber  as  he  has  been  doing  instead  of 
coming  in  to  produce  rubber  to  reduce  his  competition 
as  a  buyer  in  the  world's  market."  The  Malaya 
estates  calculate  to  pay  a  dividend  of  20  per  cent,  on 
the  investment  with  rubber  selling  at  30  cents  a  pound 
and  every  two  cents  additional  on  the  price  brings 
a  further  3%  per  cent,  dividend.  The  output  is  re- 
stricted by  the  Rubber  Growers'  Association  so  as  to 
keep  the  price  up  to  50-70  cents.  When  the  planta- 
tions first  came  into  bearing  in  1910  rubber  was  bring- 
ing nearly  $3  a  pound,  and  since  it  can  be  produced 
at  less  than  30  cents  a  pound  we  can  imagine  the  profits 
of  the  early  birds. 

The  fact  that  the  world's  rubber  trade  was  in  the 
control  of  Great  Britain  caused  America  great  anxiety 
and  financial  loss  in  the  early  part  of  the  war  when 
the  British  Government,  suspecting — not  without  rea- 
son— that  some  American  rubber  goods  were  getting 
into  Germany  through  neutral  nations,  suddenly  shut 


158  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

off  our  supply.  This  threatened  to  kill  the  fourth  larg- 
est of  our  industries  and  it  was  only  by  the  submission 
of  American  rubber  dealers  to  the  closest  supervision 
and  restriction  by  the  British  authorities  that  they 
were  allowed  to  continue  their  business.  Sir  Francis 
Hopwood,  in  laying  down  these  regulations,  gave 
emphatic  warning  **that  in  case  any  manufacturer, 
importer  or  dealer  came  under  suspicion  his  permits 
should  be  immediately  revoked.  Reinstatement  will 
be  slow  and  difficult.  The  British  .Government  will 
cancel  first  and  investigate  afterward.^'  Of  course 
the  British  had  a  right  to  say  under  what  conditions 
they  should  sell  their  rubber  and  we  cannot  blame  them 
for  taking  such  precautions  to  prevent  its  getting  to 
their  enemies,  but  it  placed  the  United  States  in  a 
humiliating  position  and  if  we  had  not  been  in  sym- 
pathy with  their  side  it  would  have  aroused  more  re- 
sentment than  it  did.  But  it  made  evident  the  de- 
sirability of  having  at  least  part  of  our  supply  under 
our  own  control  and,  if  possible,  within  our  own 
country.  Rubber  is  not  rare  in  nature,  for  it  is  con- 
tained in  almost  every  milky  juice.  Every  country  boy 
knows  that  he  can  get  a  self -feeding  mucilage  brush  by 
cutting  off  a  milkweed  stalk.  The  only  native  source  so 
far  utilized  is  the  guayule,  which  grows  wild  on  the  des- 
erts of  the  Mexican  and  the  American  border.  The 
plant  was  discovered  in  1852  by  Dr.  J.  M.  Bigelow  near 
Escondido  Creek,  Texas.  Professor  Asa  Gray  de- 
scribed it  and  named  it  Parthenium  argentatum,  or 
the  silver  Pallas.  When  chopped  up  and  macerated 
guayule  gives  a  satisfactory  quality  of  caoutchouc  in 
profitable  amounts.    In  1911  seven  thousand  tons  of 


THE  RACE  FOR  RUBBER  159 

guayule  were  imported  from  Mexico;  in  1917  only 
seventeen  hundred  tons.  Why  this  falling  off?  Be- 
cause the  eager  exploiters  had  killed  the  goose  that 
laid  the  golden  egg,  or  in  plain  language,  pulled  up 
the  plant  by  the  roots.  Now  guayule  is  being  culti- 
vated and  is  reaped  instead  of  being  uprooted.  Ex- 
periments at  the  Tucson  laboratory  have  recently  re- 
moved the  difficulty  of  getting  the  seed  to  germinate 
under  cultivation.  This  seems  the  most  promising  of 
the  home-grown  plants  and,  until  artificial  rubber  can 
be  made  profitable,  gives  us  the  only  chance  of  being 
in  part  independent  of  oversea  supply. 

There  are  various  other  gums  found  in  nature  that 
can  for  some  purposes  be  substituted  for  caoutchouc. 
Gutta  percha,  for  instance,  is  pliable  and  tough  though 
not  very  elastic.  It  becomes  plastic  by  heat  so  it  can 
be  molded,  but  unlike  rubber  it  cannot  be  hardened  by 
heating  with  sulfur.  A  lump  of  gutta  percha  was 
brought  from  Java  in  1766  and  placed  in  a  British 
museum,  where  it  lay  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  be- 
fore it  occurred  to  anybody  to  do  anything  with  it 
except  to  look  at  it.  But  a  German  electrician,  Sie- 
mens, discovered  in  1847  that  gutta  percha  was  valu- 
able for  insulating  telegraph  lines  and  it  found  exten- 
sive employment  in  submarine  cables  as  well  as  for 
golf  balls,  and  the  like. 

Balata,  which  is  found  in  the  forests  of  the  Guianas, 
is  between  gutta  percha  and  rubber,  not  so  good  for 
insulation  but  useful  for  shoe  soles  and  machine  belts. 
The  bark  of  the  tree  is  so  thick  that  the  latex  does  not 
run  off  like  caoutchouc  when  the  bark  is  cut.  So  the 
bark  has  to  be  cut  off  and  squeezed  in  hand  presses. 


160  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

Formerly  this  meant  cutting  down  the  tree,  but  now- 
alternate  strips  of  the  bark  are  cut  off  and  squeezed 
so  the  tree  continues  to  live. 

When  Columbus  discovered  Santo  Domingo  he  found 
the  natives  playing  with  balls  made  from  the  gum  of 
the  caoutchouc  tree.  The  soldiers  of  Pizarro,  when 
they  conquered  Inca-Land,  adopted  the  Peruvian  cus- 
tom of  smearing  caoutchouc  over  their  coats  to  keep  out 
the  rain.  A  French  scientist,  M.  de  la  Condamine,  who 
went  to  South  America  to  measure  the  earth,  came  back 
in  1745  with  some  specimens  of  caoutchouc  from  Para 
as  well  as  quinine  from  Peru.  The  vessel  on  which  he 
returned,  the  brig  Minerva,  had  a  narrow  escape  from 
capture  by  an  English  cruiser,  for  Great  Britain  was 
jealous  of  any  trespassing  on  her  American  sphere  of 
influence.  The  Old  "World  need  not  have  waited  for 
the  discovery  of  the  New,  for  the  rubber  tree  grows 
wild  in  Annam  as  well  as  Brazil,  but  none  of  the  Asi- 
atics seems  to  have  discovered  any  of  the  many  uses  of 
the  juice  that  exudes  from  breaks  in  the  bark. 

The  first  practical  use  that  was  made  of  it  gave  it  the 
name  that  has  stuck  to  it  in  English  ever  since.  Ma- 
gellan announced  in  1772  that  it  was  good  to  remove 
pencil  marks.  A  lump  of  it  was  sent  over  from  France 
to  Priestley,  the  clergyman  chemist  who  discovered 
oxygen  and  was  mobbed  out  of  Manchester  for  being  a 
republican  and  took  refuge  in  Pennsylvania.  He  cut 
the  lump  into  little  cubes  and  gave  them  to  his  friends 
to  eradicate  their  mistakes  in  writing  or  figuring. 
Then  they  asked  him  what  the  queer  things  were  and 
he  said  that  they  were  ** India  rubbers.'^ 

The  Peruvian  natives  had  used  caoutchouc  for  water- 


©  Underwood  &  Underwood 

IN  MAKING   GARDEN  HOSE   THE   RUBBER   IS  FORMED   INTO  A  TUBE   BY  THE^ 
MACHINE    ON    THE    RIGH1    AND    COfLED  ON     THE    TABLE    TO    THE    LEFT 


THE  EACE  FOR  RUBBER  161 

proof  clothing,  shoes,  bottles  and  syringes,  but  Europe 
was  slow  to  take  it  up,  for  the  stuff  was  too  sticky  and 
smelled  too  bad  in  hot  weather  to  become  fashionable 
in  fastidious  circles.  In  1825  Mackintosh  made  his 
name  immortal  by  putting  a  layer  of  rubber  between 
two  cloths. 

A  German  chemist,  Ludersdorf,  discovered  in  1832 
that  the  gum  could  be  hardened  by  treating  it  with 
sulfur  dissolved  in  turpentine.  But  it  was  left  to  a 
Yankee  inventor,  Charles  G-oodyear,  of  Connecticut,  to 
work  out  a  practical  solution  of  the  problem.  A  friend 
of  his,  Hayward,  told  him  that  it  had  been  revealed  to 
him  in  a  dream  that  sulfur  would  harden  rubber,  but 
unfortunately  the  angel  or  defunct  chemist  who  in- 
spired the  vision  failed  to  reveal  the  details  of  the 
process.  So  Hayward  sold  out  his  dream  to  Good- 
year, who  spent  all  his  own  money  and  all  he  could 
borrow  from  his  friends  trying  to  convert  it  into  a  real- 
ity. He  worked  for  ten  years  on  the  problem  before 
the  ** lucky  accident''  came  to  him.  One  day  in  1839 
he  happened  to  drop  on  the  hot  stove  of  the  kitchen  that 
he  used  as  a  laboratory  a  mixture  of  caoutchouc  and 
sulfur.  To  his  surprise  he  saw  the  two  substances  fuse 
together  into  something  new.  Instead  of  the  soft, 
tacky  gum  and  the  yellow,  brittle  brimstone  he  had  the 
tough,  stable,  elastic  solid  that  has  done  so  much  since 
to  make  our  footing  and  wheeling  safe,  swift  and  noise- 
less. The  gumshoes  or  galoshes  that  he  was  then  en- 
abled to  make  still  go  by  the  name  of  '* rubbers''  in 
this  country,  although  we  do  not  use  them  for  pencil 
erasers. 

Goodyear  found  that  he  could  vary  this  **  vulcanized 


162  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

rubber''  at  will.  By  adding  a  little  more  sulfur  lie  got 
a  hard  substance  which,  however,  could  be  softened  by- 
heat  so  as  to  be  molded  into  any  form  wanted.  Out  of 
this  **hard  rubber"  ** vulcanite''  or  ** ebonite"  were 
made  combs,  hairpins,  penholders  and  the  like,  and  it 
has  not  yet  been  superseded  for  some  purposes  by  any 
of  its  recent  rivals,  the  synthetic  resins. 

The  new  form  of  rubber  made  by  the  Germans, 
methyl  rubber,  is  said  to  be  a  superior  substitute  for 
the  hard  variety  but  not  satisfactory  for  the  soft.  The 
electrical  resistance  of  the  synthetic  product  is  20  per 
cent,  higher  than  the  natural,  so  it  is  excellent  for  insu- 
lation, but  it  is  inferior  in  elasticity.  In  the  latter  part 
of  the  war  the  methyl  rubber  was  manufactured  at  the 
rate  of  165  tons  a  month. 

The  first  pneumatic  tires,  known  then  as  **  patent 
aerial  wheels,"  were  invented  by  Robert  William 
Thomson  of  London  in  1846.  On  the  following  year  a 
carriage  equipped  with  them  was  seen  in  the  streets 
of  New  York  City.  But  the  pneumatic  tire  did  not 
come  into  use  until  after  1888,  when  an  Irish  horse- 
doctor,  John  Boyd  Dunlop,  of  Belfast,  tied  a  rubber 
tube  around  the  wheels  of  his  little  son's  velocipede. 
Within  seven  years  after  that  a  $25,000,000  corpora- 
tion was  manufacturing  Dunlop  tires.  Later  America 
took  the  lead  in  this  business.  In  1913  the  United 
States  exported  $3,000,000  worth  of  tires  and  tubes. 
In  1917  the  American  exports  rose  to  $13,000,000,  not 
counting  what  went  to  the  Allies.  The  number  of 
pneumatic  tires  sold  in  1917  is  estimated  at  18,000,000, 
which  at  an  average  cost  of  $25  would  amount  to  $450,- 
000,000. 


THE  RACE  FOR  RUBBER  163 

No  matter  how  much  synthetic  rubber  may  be  manu- 
facturer or  how  many  rubber  trees  are  set  out  there  is 
no  danger  of  glutting  the  market,  for  as  the  price  falls 
the  uses  of  rubber  become  more  numerous.  One  can 
think  of  a  thousand  ways  in  which  rubber  could  be 
used  if  it  were  only  cheap  enough.  In  the  form  of  pads 
and  springs  and  tires  it  would  do  much  to  render  traffic 
noiseless.  Even  the  elevated  railroad  and  the  subway 
might  be  opened  to  conversation,  and  the  city  made 
habitable  for  mild  voiced  and  gentle  folk.  It  would 
make  one 's  step  sure,  noiseless  and  springy,  whether  it 
was  used  individualistically  as  rubber  heels  or  collec- 
tivistically  as  carpeting  and  paving.  In  roofing  and 
siding  and  paint  it  would  make  our  buildings  warmer 
and  more  durable.  It  would  reduce  the  cost  and  per- 
mit the  extension  of  electrical  appliances  of  almost  all 
kinds.  In  short,  there  is  hardly  any  other  material 
whose  abundance  would  contribute  more  to  our  comfort 
and  convenience.  Noise  is  an  automatic  alarm  indi- 
cating lost  motion  and  wasted  energy.  Silence  is 
economy  and  resiliency  is  superior  to  resistance.  A 
gumshoe  outlasts  a  hobnailed  sole  and  a  rubber  tube 
full  of  air  is  better  than  a  steel  tire. 


rx 

THE  RIVAL  SUGARS 

The  ancient  Greeks,  being  an  inquisitive  and  acquisi- 
tive people,  were  fond  of  collecting  tales  of  strange 
lands.  They  did  not  care  much  whether  the  stories 
were  true  or  not  so  long  as  they  were  interesting. 
Among  the  marvels  that  the  Greeks  heard  from  the  Far 
East  two  of  the  strangest  were  that  in  India  there  were 
plants  that  bore  wool  without  sheep  and  reeds  that  bore 
honey  without  bees.  These  incredible  tales  turned  out 
to  be  true  and  in  the  course  of  time  Europe  began  to 
get  a  little  calico  from  Calicut  and  a  kind  of  edible 
gravel  that  the  Arabs  who  brought  it  caUed  ^^sukkar.^' 
But  of  course  only  kings  and  queens  could  afford  to 
dress  in  calico  and  have  sugar  prescribed  for  them 
when  they  were  sick. 

Fortunately,  however,  in  the  course  of  time  the 
Arabs  invaded  Spain  and  forced  upon  the  unwilling 
inhabitants  of  Europe  such  instrumentalities  of  higher 
civilization  as  arithmetic  and  algebra,  soap  and  sugarT 
Later  the  Spaniards  by  an  act  of  equally  unwarranted 
and  beneficent  aggression  carried  the  sugar  cane  to  the 
Caribbean,  where  it  thrived  amazingly.  The  West  In- 
dies then  became  a  rival  of  the  East  Indies  as  a  treas- 
ure-house of  tropical  wealth  and  for  several  centuries 
the  Spanish,  Portuguese,  Dutch,  English,  Danes  and 
French  fought  like  wildcats  to  gain  possession  of  this 

164 


THE  RIVAL  SUGARS  165 

little  nest  of  islands  and  tlie  routes  leading  tlierennto. 
The  English  finally  overcame  all  these  enemies, 
whether  they  fonght  her  singly  or  combined.  Great 
Britain  became  mistress  of  the  seas  and  took  such 
Caribbean  lands  as  she  wanted.  But  in  the  end  her 
continental  foes  came  out  ahead,  for  they  rendered  her 
victory  valueless.  They  were  defeated  in  geography 
but  they  won  in  chemistry.  Canning  boasted  that  **the 
New  World  had  been  called  into  existence  to  redress 
the  balance  of  the  Old. ' '  Napoleon  might  have  boasted 
that  he  had  called  in  the  sugar  beet  to  balance  the  sugar 
cane.  France  was  then,  as  Germany  was  a  century 
later,  threatening  to  dominate  the  world.  England, 
then  as  in  the  Great  War,  shut  off  from  the  seas  the 
shipping  of  the  aggressive  power.  France  then,  like 
Germany  later,  felt  most  keenly  the  lack  of  tropical 
products,  chief  among  which,  then  but  not  in  the  recent 
crisis,  was  sugar.  The  cause  of  this  vital  change  is 
that  in  1747  Marggraf,  a  Berlin  chemist,  discovered 
that  it  was  possible  to  extract  sugar  from  beets.  There 
was  only  a  little  sugar  in  the  beet  root  then,  some  six 
per  cent.,  and  what  he  got  out  was  dirty  and  bitter. 
One  of  his  pupils  in  1801  set  up  a  beet  sugar  factory 
near  Breslau  under  the  patronage  of  the  King  of  Prus- 
sia, but  the  industry  was  not  a  success  until  Napoleon 
took  it  up  and  in  1810  offered  a  prize  of  a  million  francs 
for  a  practical  process.  How  the  French  did  make  fun 
of  him  for  this  crazy  notion !  In  a  comic  paper  of  that 
day  you  will  find  a  cartoon  of  Napoleon  in  the  nursery 
beside  the  cradle  of  his  son  and  heir,  the  King  of 
Rome — known  to  the  readers  of  Rostand  as  PAiglon. 
The  Emperor  is  squeezing  the  juice  of  a  beet  into  his 


166  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

coffee  and  the  nurse  lias  put  a  beet  into  the  mouth  of 
the  infant  King,  saying:  **Suck,  dear,  suck.  Your 
father  says  it  's  sugar. '  ^ 

In  like  manner  did  the  wits  ridicule  Franklin  for 
fooling  with  electricity,  Rumf ord  for  trying  to  improve 
chimneys,  Parmentier  for  thinking  potatoes  were  fit  to 
eat,  and  »Jefferson  for  believing  that  something  might 
be  made  of  the  country  west  of  the  Mississippi.  In  all 
ages  ridicule  has  been  the  chief  weapon  of  conserva- 
tism. If  you  want  to  know  what  line  human  progress 
will  take  in  the  future  read  the  funny  papers  of  today 
and  see  what  they  are  fighting.  The  satire  of  every 
century  from  Aristophanes  to  the  latest  vaudeville  has 
been  directed  against  those  who  are  trying  to  make  the 
world  wiser  or  better,  against  the  teacher  and  the 
preacher,  the  scientist  and  the  reformer. 

In  spite  of  the  ridicule  showered  upon  it  the  despised 
beet  year  by  year  gained  in  sweetness  of  heart.  The 
percentage  of  sugar  rose  from  six  to  eighteen  and  by 
improved  methods  of  extraction  became  finally  as  pure 
and  palatable  as  the  sugar  of  the  cane.  An  acre  of 
'German  beets  produces  more  sugar  than  an  acre  of 
Louisiana  cane.  Continental  Europe  waxed  wealthy 
while  the  British  West  Indies  sank  into  decay.  As  the 
beets  of  Europe  became  sweeter  the  population  of  the 
islands  became  blacker.  Before  the  war  England  was 
paying  out  $125,000,000  for  sugar,  and  more  than  two- 
thirds  of  this  money  was  going  to  Germany  and  Aus- 
tria-Hungary. Fostered  by  scientific  study,  protected 
by  tariff  duties,  and  stimulated  by  export  bounties,  the 
beet  sugar  industry  became  one  of  the  financial  forces 
of  the  world.    The  English  at  home,  especially  the  mar- 


THE  EIVAL  SUGARS 


167 


malade-makers,  at  first  rejoiced  at  the  idea  of  getting 
sugar  for  less  than  cost  at  the  expense  of  her  conti- 
nental rivals.    But  the  suffering  colonies  took  another 

M5«>  SHOwiHG  lixymoM  OF  Eli?aPEw  Bar  Sugar  FiwnroR^ 

Esn'tvcro]  t>mt  Otc-TNRO  or  W(su)*s  PGOcucmt  bguic  tic  Ww  vas  Prcduco  wrmr  BAmrUcs 


Courtesy   American    Sugar   Refining   Co. 

view  of  the  situation.  In  1888  a  conference  of  the 
powers  called  at  London  agreed  to  stop  competing  by 
the  pernicious  practice  of  export  bounties,  but  France 
and  the  United  States  refused  to  enter,  so  the  agree- 
ment fell  through.  Another  conference  ten  years  later 
likewise  failed,  but  when  the  parvenu  beet  sugar  ven- 
tured to  invade  the  historic  home  of  the  cane  the  limit 
of  toleration  had  been  reached.  The  Council  of  India 
put  on  countervailing  duties  to  protect  their  home- 
grown cane  from  the  bounty-fed  beet.  This  forced  the 
calling  of  a  convention  at  Brussels  in  1903  **to  equal- 
ize the  conditions  of  competition  between  beet  sugar 
and  cane  sugar  of  the  various  countries,"  at  which  the 
powers  agreed  to  a  mutual  suppression  of  bounties. 
Beet  sugar  then  divided  the  world's  market  equally 


168  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

with  cane  sugar  and  the  two  rivals  stayed  snbstantiplly 
neck  and  neck  until  the  Great  War  came.  This  shut 
out  from  England  the  product  of  Germany,  Austria- 
Hungary,  Belgium,  northern  France  and  Russia  and 
took  the  farmers  from  their  fields.  The  battle  lines  of 
the  Central  Powers  enclosed  the  land  which  used  to 
grow  a  third  of  the  world's  supply  of  sugar.  In  1913 
the  beet  and  the  cane  each  supplied  about  nine  million 
tons  of  sugar.  In  1917  the  output  of  cane  sugar  was 
11,200,000  and  of  beet  sugar  5,300,000  tons.  Conse- 
quently the  Old  World  had  to  draw  upon  the  New. 
Cuba,  on  which  the  TjTnited  States  used  to  depend  for 
half  its  sugar  supply,  sent  over  700,000  tons  of  raw 
sugar  to  England  in  1916.  The  United  States  sent  as 
much  more  refined  sugar.  The  lack  of  shipping  inter- 
fered with  our  getting  sugar  from  our  tropical  depend- 
encies, Hawaii,  Porto  Rico  and  the  Philippines.  The 
homegrown  beets  give  us  only  a  fifth  and  the  cane  of 
Louisiana  and  Texas  only  a  fifteenth  of  the  sugar  we 
need.  As  a  result  we  were  obliged  to  file  a  claim  in 
advance  to  get  a  pound  of  sugar  from  the  comer  gro- 
cery and  then  we  were  apt  to  be  put  off  with*  rock 
candy,  muscovado  or  honey.  Lemon  drops  proved  use- 
ful for  Russian  tea  and  the  **long  sweetening''  of  our 
forefathers  came  again  into  vogue  in  the  form  of  vari- 
ous syrups.  The  United  States  was  accustomed  to 
consume  almost  a  fifth  of  all  the  sugar  produced  in  the 
world — and  then  we  could  not  get  it. 

The  shortage  made  us  realize  how  dependent  we  have 
become  upon  sugar.  Yet  it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  prac- 
tically unknown  to  the  ancients  and  only  within  the 
present  generation  has  it  become  an  essential  factor  in 


THE  RIVAL  SUGARS 


169 


our  diet.    As  soon  as  the  chemist  made  it  possible  to 
produce  sngar  at  a  reasonable  price  all  nations  began 


V868     i&78     1888    td&8    1008  i9>e 
t  I 

'    PHYStCAL  j^  PHYSICAL.  CHEMICAL 

AND — ^^~  AND 

I   CHCMICAL    I  PMYStOtOeiCAl  SEUCTldN 
!  SCLCCTION   I 


How  the  sugar  beet  has  gained  enormously  in  sugar  content  under 
chemical  control 


to  buy  it  in  proportion  to  their  means.  Americans,  as 
the  wealthiest  people  in  the  world,  ate  the  most,  ninety 
pounds  a  year  on  the  average  for  every  man,  woman 
and  child.  In  other  words  we  ate  our  weight  of  sugar 
every  year.  The  English  consumed  nearly  as  much 
as  the  Americans;  the  French  and  Germans  about 


170  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

half  as  much ;  the  Balkan  peoples  less  than  ten  pounds 
per  annum ;  and  the  African  savage-s  none. 

Pure  white  sugar  is  the  first  and  greatest  contribu- 
tion of  chemistry  to  the  world's  dietary.  It  is  unique 
in  being  a  single  definite  chemical  compound,  sucrose, 
C12H22O11.  All  natural  nutriments  are  more  or  less 
complex  mixtures.  Many  of  them,  like  wheat  or  milk 
or  fruit,  contain  in  various  proportions  all  of  the  three 
factors  of  foods,  the  fats,  the  proteids  and  the  carbohy- 
drates, as  well  as  water  and  the  minerals  and  other 
ingredients  necessary  to  life.  But  sugar  is  a  simple 
substance,  like  water  or  salt,  and  like  them  is  incapable 
of  sustaining  life  alone,  although  unlike  them  it  is  nu- 
tritious. In  fact,  except  the  fats  there  is  no  more 
nutritious  food  than  sugar,  pound  for  pound,  for  it  con- 
tains no  water  and  no  waste.  It  is  therefore  the  quick- 
est and  usually  the  cheapest  means  of  supplying  bodily 
energy.  But  as  may  be  seen  from  its  formula  as  given 
above  it  contains  only  three  elements,  carbon,  hydro- 
gen and  oxygen,  and  omits  nitrogen  and  other  elements 
necessary  to  the  body.  An  engine  requires  not  only 
coal  but  also  lubricating  oil,  water  and  bits  of  steel  and 
brass  to  keep  it  in  repair.  But  as  a  source  of  the 
energy  needed  in  our  strenuous  life  sugar  has  no  equal 
and  only  one  rival,  alcohol.  Alcohol  is  the  offspring  of 
sugar,  a  degenerate  descendant  that  retains  but  few  of 
the  good  qualities  of  its  sire  and  has  acquired  some  evil 
traits  of  its  own.  Alcohol,  like  sugar,  may  ser\^e  to 
furnish  the  energy  of  a  steam  engine  or  a  human  body. 
Used  as  a  fuel  alcohol  has  certain  advantages,  but  used 
as  a  food  it  has  the  disqualification  of  deranging  the 
bodily  mechanism.    Even  a  little  alcohol  will  impair 


THE  RIVAL  SUGARS         *  111 

the  accuracy  and  speed  of  thought  and  action,  while  a 
large  quantity,  as  we  all  know  from  observation  if  not 
experience,  will  produce  temporary  incapacitation. 

When  man  feeds  on  sugar  he  splits  it  up  by  the  aid 
of  air  into  water  and  carbon  dioxide  in  this  fashion : 

Ca2H2oOu+      I2O2    ->■     IIH.O      +12CO2 
cane  sugar     oxygen  water  carbon  dioxide 

When  sugar  is  burned  the  reaction  is  just  the  same. 

But  when  the  yeast  plant  feeds  on  sugar  it  carries 
the  process  only  part  way  and  instead  of  water  the 
product  is  alcohol,  a  very  different  thing,  so  they  say 
who  have  tried  both  as  beverages.  The  yeast  or  fer- 
mentation reaction  is  this : 

C12H20OU+    H2O   ->►   4C2H6O      +4CO2 

cane  sugar     water  alcohol     carbon  dioxide 

Alcohol  then  is  the  first  product  of  the  decomposi- 
tion of  sugar,  a  dangerous  half-way  house.  The  twin 
product,  carbon  dioxide  or  carbonic  acid,  is  a  gas  of 
slightly  sour  taste  which  gives  an  attractive  tang  and 
effervescence  to  the  beer,  wine,  cider  or  champagne. 
That  is  to  say,  one  of  these  twins  is  a  pestilential  fel- 
low and  the  other  is  decidedly  agreeable.  Yet  for  sev- 
eral thousand  years  mankind  took  to  the  first  and  let 
the  second  for  the  most  part  escape  into  the  air.  But 
when  the  chemist  appeared  on  the  scene  he  discovered 
a  way  of  separating  the  two  and  bottling  the  harmless 
one  for  those  who  prefer  it.  An  increasing  number  of 
people  were  found  to  prefer  it,  so  the  American  soda- 
water  fountain  is  gradually  driving  Demon  Rum  out 
of  the  civilized  world.  The  brewer  nowadays  caters  to 
two  classes  of  customers.    He  bottles  up  the  beer  with 


172  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

the  alcohol  and  a  little  carbonic  acid  in  it  for  the  saloon 
and  he  catches  the  rest  of  the  carbonic  acid  that  he 
used  to  waste  and  sells  it  to  the  drug  stores  for  soda- 
water  or  uses  it  to  charge  some  non-alcoholic  beer  of  his 
own. 

This  catering  to  rival  trades  is  not  an  uncommon 
thing  with  the  chemist.  As  we  have  seen,  the  synthetic 
perfumes  are  used  to  improve  the  natural  perfumes. 
Cottonseed  is  separated  into  oil  and  meal;  the  oil  going 
to  make  margarin  and  the  meal  going  to  feed  the  cows 
that  produce  butter.  Some  people  have  been  drinking 
coffee,  although  they  do  not  like  the  taste  of  it,  because 
they  want  the  stimulating  effect  of  its  alkaloid,  caffein. 
Other  people  liked  the  warmth  and  flavor  of  coffee  but 
find  that  caffein  does  not  agree  with  them.  Formerly 
one  had  to  take  the  coffee  whole  or  let  it  alone.  Now 
one  can  have  his  choice,  for  the  caffein  is  extracted  for 
use  in  certain  popular  cold  drinks  and  the  rest  of  the 
bean  sold  as  caffein-free  coffee. 

Most  of  the  *^soft  drinks''  that  are  now  gradually 
displacing  the  hard  ones  consist  of  sugar,  water  and 
carbonic  acid,  with  various  flavors,  chiefly  the  esters  of 
the  fatty  and  aromatic  acids,  such  as  I  described  in  a 
previous  chapter.  These  are  still  usually  made  from 
fruits  and  spices  and  in  some  cases  the  law  or  public 
opinion  requires  this,  but  eventually,  I  presume,  the 
synthetic  flavors  will  displace  the  natural  and  then  we 
shall  get  rid  of  such  extraneous  and  indigestible  matter 
as  seeds,  skins  and  bark.  Suppose  the  world  had  al- 
ways been  used  to  synthetic  and  hence  seedless  figs, 
strawberries  and  blackberries.  Suppose  then  some 
manufacturer  of  ^g  paste  or  strawberry  jam  should  put 


THE  RIVAL  SUGARS  173 

in  ten  per  cent,  of  little  round  hard  wooden  nodules, 
just  the  sort  to  get  stuck  between  the  teeth  or  caught 
in  the  vermiform  appendix.  How  long  would  it  be 
before  he  was  sent  to  jail  for  adulterating  food?  But 
neither  jail  nor  boycott  has  any  reformatory  effect  on 
Nature. 

Nature  is  quite  human  in  that  respect.  But  you  can 
reform  Nature  as  you  can  human  beings  by  looking  out 
for  heredity  and  culture.  In  this  way  Mother  Nature 
has  been  quite  cured  of  her  bad  habit  of  putting  seeds 
in  bananas  and  oranges.  Figs  she  still  persists  in 
adulterating  with  particles  of  cellulose  as  nutritious  as 
sawdust.  But  we  can  circumvent  the  old  lady  at  this. 
I  got  on  Christmas  a  package  of  figs  from  California 
without  a  seed  in  them.  Somebody  had  taken  out  all 
the  seeds — it  must  have  been  a  big  job — and  then  put 
the  figs  together  again  as  natural  looking  as  life  and 
very  much  better  tasting. 

Sugar  and  alcohol  are  both  found  in  Nature;  sugar  in 
the  ripe  fruit,  alcohol  when  it  begins  to  decay.  But  it 
was  the  chemist  who  discovered  how  to  extract  them. 
He  first  worked  with  alcohol  and  unfortunately  suc- 
ceeded. 

Pre^dous  to  the  invention  of  the  still  by  the 
Arabian  chemists  man  could  not  get  drunk  as  quickly 
as  he  wanted  to  because  his  liquors  were  limited  to 
what  the  yeast  plant  could  stand  without  intoxication. 
When  the  alcoholic  content  of  wine  or  beer  rose  to 
seventeen  per  cent,  at  the  most  the  process  of  fermen- 
tation stopped  because  the  yeast  plants  got  drunk  and 
quit  ** working.''  That  meant  that  a  man  confined  to 
ordinary  wine  or  beer  had  to  drink  ten  or  twenty 


174  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

quarts  of  water  to  get  one  quart  of  the  stuff  he  was 
after,  and  he  had  no  liking  for  water. 

So  the  chemist  helped  him  out  of  this  difficulty  and 
got  him  into  worse  trouble  by  distilling  the  wine.  The 
more  volatile  part  that  came  over  first  contained  the 
flavor  and  most  of  the  alcohol.  In  this  way  he  could 
get  liquors  like  brandy  and  whisky,  rum  and  gin,  con- 
taining from  thirty  to  eighty  per  cent,  of  alcohol.  This 
was  the  origin  of  the  modern  liquor  problem.  The 
wine  of  the  ancients  was  strong  enough  to  knock  out 
Noah  and  put  the  companions  of  Socrates  under  the 
table,  but  it  was  not  until  distilled  liquors  came  in  that 
alcoholism  became  chronic,  epidemic  and  ruinous  to 
whole  populations. 

But  the  chemist  later  tried  to  undo  the  ruin  he  had 
quite  inadvertently  wrought  by  introducing  alcohol  into 
the  world.  One  of  his  most  successful  measures  was 
the  production  of  cheap  and  pure  sugar  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  has  become  a  large  factor  in  the  dietary  of 
civilized  countries.  As  a  country  sobers  up  it  takes  to 
sugar  as  a  *^ self-starter''  to  provide  the  energy  needed 
for  the  strenuous  life.  A  five  o  'clock  candy  is  a  better 
restorative  than  a  five  o'clock  highball  or  even  a  five 
o'clock  tea,  for  it  is  a  true  nutrient  instead  of  a  mere 
stimulant.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that 
those  who  like  sweets  usually  do  not  like  alcohol. 
Women,  for  instance,  are  apt  to  eat  candy  but  do 
not  commonly  take  to  alcoholic  beverages.  Look 
Around  you  at  a  banquet  table  and  you  will  generally 
find  that  those  who  turn  down  their  wine  glasses  gen- 
erally take  two  lumps  in  their  demi-tasses.  We  often 
hear  it  ;Said  that  whenever  a  candy  store  opens  up  a 


THE  RIVAL  SUGARS  175 

Baloon  in  the  same  block  closes  up.  Our  grandmothers 
used  to  warn  their  daughters:  ** Don't  marry  a  man 
who  does  not  want  sugar  in  his  tea.  He  is  likely  to 
take  to  drink."  So,  young  man,  when  next  you  give 
a  box  of  candy  to  your  best  girl  and  she  offers  you 
some,  don't  decline  it.  Eat  it  and  pretend  to  like  it, 
at  least,  for  it  is  quite  possible  that  she  looked  into  a 
physiology  and  is  trying  you  out.  You  never  can  tell 
what  girls  are  up  to. 

In  the  army  and  navy  ration  the  same  change  has 
taken  place  as  in  the  popular  dietary.     The  ration  of 
rum  has  been  mostly  replaced  by  an  equivalent  amount 
of    candy    or   marmalade.    Instead    of   the    tippling 
trooper  of  former  days  we  have  ''the  chocolate  sol- 
dier."   No  previous  war  in  history  has  been  fought 
so  largely  on  sugar  and  so  little  on  alcohol  as  the  last 
one.    When  the  war  reduced  the  supply  and  increased 
the  demand  we  all  felt  the  sugar  famine  and  it  became 
a  mark  of  patriotism  to  refuse  candy  and  to  drink  cof- 
fee unsweetened.     This,  however,  is  not,  as  some  think, 
the  mere  curtailment  of  a  superfluous  or  harmful  lux- 
ury, the  sacrifice  of  a  pleasant  sensation.    It  is  a  real 
deprivation  and  a  serious  loss  to  national  nutrition. 
For  there  is  no  reason  to  think  the  constantly  rising 
curve  of  sugar  consumption  has  yet  reached  its  maxi- 
Imum  or  optimum.    Individuals  overeat,  but  not  the 
3opulation  as  a  whole.    According  to  experiments  of 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  men  doing  heavy  labor 
;  may  add  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  sugar  to  their 
,.  daily  diet  without  any  deleterious  effects.    This  is  at 
a  the  rate  of  275  pounds  a  year,  which  is  three  times  the 
a  average  consumption  of  England  and  America.    But 


176  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

th©  Department  does  not  state  how  much  a  girl  doing 
nothing  ought  to  eat  between  meals. 

Of  the  2500  to  3500  calories  of  energy  required  to 
keep  a  man  going  for  a  day  the  best  source  of  supply 
is  the  carbohydrates,  that  is,  the  sugars  and  starches. 
The  fats  are  more  concentrated  but  are  more  expen- 
sive and  less  easily  assimilable.  The  proteins  are 
also  more  expensive  and  their  decomposition  products 
are  more  apt  to  clog  up  the  system.  Common  sugar 
is  almost  an  ideal  food.  Cheap,  clean,  white,  por- 
table, imperishable,  unadulterated,  pleasant-tasting, 
germ-free,  highly  nutritious,  completely  soluble,  al- 
together digestible,  easily  assimilable,  requires  no 
cooking  and  leaves  no  residue.  Its  only  fault  is  its 
perfection.  It  is  so  pure  that  a  man  cannot  live  on 
it.  Four  square  lumps  give  one  hundred  calories 
of  energy.  But  twenty-five  or  thirty-five  times  that 
amount  would  not  constitue  a  day's  ration,  in  fact 
one  would  ultimately  starve  on  such  fare.  It  would 
be  like  supplying  an  army  with  an  abundance  of  pow- 
der but  neglecting  to  provide  any  bullets,  clothing  or 
food.  To  make  sugar  the  sole  food  is  impossible.  To 
make  it  the  main  food  is  unwise.  It  is  quite  proper- 
for  man  to  separate  out  the  distinct  ingredients  of  nat- 
ural products — to  extract  the  butter  from  the  milk,  the 
casein  from  the  cheese,  the  sugar  from  the  cane — but 
he  must  not  forget  to  combine  them  again  at  each  meal 
with  the  other  essential  foodstuffs  in  their  proper 
proportion. 

Sugar  is  not  a  synthetic  product  and  the  business- 
of  the  chemist  has  been  merely  to  extract  and  purify  it. 
But  this  is  not  so  simple  as  it  seems  and  every  sugars 


..-^-^v>^;  ^ .,  ,  „  ,.-a,-iii*  ^  •if-ftta;t,i.ii,  .nil, 


INTERIOU  OP  A  SUGAR  MILU  SHOWING  THJi  MACHINERY  FOR  CRUSHING  CANE5 
TO    EXTRACT   THE    JUICE 


Courtesy  of  American  Sugar  Refinery  Co. 

VACUUM    PANS    OF    THE    AMERICAN    SUGAR    REFINERY   COMPANY 


THE  EIVAL  SUGARS  177 

factory  has  had  to  have  its  chemist.  He  has  analyzed 
every  mother  beet  for.  a  hundred  years.  He  has 
watched  every  step  of  the  process  from  the  cane  to  the 
crystal  lest  the  sucrose  should  invert  to  the  less  sweet 
and  non-crystallizable  glucose.  He  has  tested  with 
polarized  light  every  shipment  of  sugar  that  has  passed 
through  the  custom  house,  much  to  the  mystification  of 
congressmen  who  have  often  wondered  at  the  money 
and  argumentation  expended  in  a  tariff  discussion  over 
the  question  of  the  precise  angle  of  rotation  of  the 
plane  of  vibration  of  infinitesimal  waves  in  a  hypo- 
thetical ether. 

The  reason  for  this  painstaking  is  that  there  are 
dozens  of  different  sugars,  so  much  alike  that  they  are 
difficult  to  separate.  They  are  all  composed  of  the 
same  three  elements,  C,  H  and  0,  and  often  in  the  same 
proportion.  Sometimes  two  sugars  differ  only  in  that 
one  has  a  right-handed  and  the  other  a  left-handed 
twist  to  its  molecule.  They  bear  the  same  resemblance 
to  one  another  as  the  two  gloves  of  a  pair.  Cane  sugar 
and  beet  sugar  are  when  completely  puiified  the  same 
substance,  that  is,  sucrose,  C12H22O11.  The  brown  and 
straw-colored  sugars,  which  our  forefathers  used  and 
which  we  took  to  using  during  the  war,  are  essentially 
the  same  but  have  not  been  so  completely  freed  from 
moisture  and  the  coloring  and  flavoring  matter  of  the 
cane  juice.  Maple  sugar  is  mostly  sucrose.  So  partly  is 
honey.  Candies  are  made  chiefly  of  sucrose  with  the  ad- 
dition of  glucose,  gums  or  starch,  to  give  them  the  neces- 
sary consistency  and  of  such  colors  and  flavors,  natural 
or  synthetic,  as  may  be  desired.  Practically  all  candy, 
even  the  cheapest,  is  nowadays  free  from  deleterious 


178  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

ingredients  in  the  manufacture,  though  it  is  liable  to 
become  contaminated  in  the  handling.  In  fact  sugar 
is  about  the  only  food  that  is  never  adulterated.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  anything  cheaper  to  add  to  it  that 
would  not  be  easily  detected.  ** Sanding  the  sugar,*' 
the  crime  of  which  grocers  are  generally  accused,  is  the 
one  they  are  least  likely  to  be  guilty  of. 

Besides  the  big  family  of  sugars  which  are  all  more 
or  less  sweet,  similar  in  structure  and  about  equally 
nutritious,  there  are,  very  curiously,  other  chemical 
compounds  of  altogether  different  composition  which 
taste  like  sugar  but  are  not  nutritious  at  all.  One 
of  these  is  a  coal-tar  derivative,  discovered  acci- 
dentally by  an  American  student  of  chemistry,  Ira 
Remsen,  afterward  president  of  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  and  named  by  him  *' saccharin. ' '  This 
has  the  composition  C6H4COSO2NH,  and  as  you 
may  observe  from  the  symbol  it  contains  sulfur  (S) 
and  nitrogen  (N)  and  the  benzene  ring  (C6H4)  that  are 
not  found  in  any  of  the  sugars.  It  is  several  hundred 
times  sweeter  than  sugar,  though  it  has  also  a  slightly 
bitter  aftertaste.  A  minute  quantity  of  it  can  there- 
fore take  the  place  of  a  large  amount  of  sugar  in 
syrups,  candies  and  preserves,  so  because  it  lends  itself 
readily  to  deception  its  use  in  food  has  been  prohibited 
in  the  United  States  and  other  countries.  But  during 
the  war,  on  account  of  the  shortage  of  sugar,  it  came 
again  into  use.  The  European  governments  encour- 
aged what  they  formerly  tried  to  prevent,  and  it  be- 
came customary  in  Grermany  or  Italy  to  carry  about  a 
package  of  saccharin  tablets  in  the  pocket  and  drop  one 
or  two  into  the  tea  or  coffee.     Such  reversals  of  ad- 


THE  EIVAL  SUGAKS  179 

minis'trative  attitude  are  not  uncommon.  When  the 
use  of  hops  in  beer  was  new  it  was  prohibited  by  Brit- 
ish law.  But  hops  became  customary  nevertheless  and 
now  the  law  requires  hops  to  be  used  in  beer.  When 
workingmen  first  wanted  to  form  unions,  laws  were 
passed  to  prevent  them.  But  now,  in  Australia  for 
instance,  the  laws  require  workingmen  to  form  unions. 
Governments  naturally  tend  to  a  conservative  reaction 
against  anything  new. 

It  is  amusing  to  turn  back  to  the  pure  food  agitation 
of  ten  years  ago  and  read  the  sensational  articles  in 
the  newspapers  about  the  poisonous  nature  of  this 
dangerous  drug,  saccharin,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  it  is 
being  used  by  millions  of  people  in  Europe  in  amounts 
greater  than  once  seemed  to  upset  the  tender  stomachs 
of  the  Washington  '* poison  squads."  But  saccharin 
does  not  appear  to  be  responsible  for  any  fatalities  yet, 
though  people  are  said  to  be  heartily  sick  of  it.  And 
well  they  may  be,  for  it  is  not  a  substitute  for  sugar 
except  to  the  sense  of  taste.  Glucose  may  correctly  be 
called  a  substitute  for  sucrose  as  margarin  for  butter, 
since  they  not  only  taste  much  the  same  but  have  about 
the  same  food  value.  But  to  serve  saccharin  in  the 
place  of  sugar  is  like  giving  a  rubber  bone  to  a  dog. 
It  is  reported  from  Europe  that  the  constant  use  of 
saccharin  gives  one  eventually  a  distaste  for  all  sweets. 
This  is  quite  likely,  although  it  means  the  reversal 
within  a  few  years  of  prehistoric  food  habits.  Man- 
kind has  always  associated  sweetness  with  food  value, 
for  there  are  few  sweet  things  found  in  nature  except 
the  sugars.  We  think  we  eat  sugar  because  it  is  sweet. 
But  we  do  not.    We  eat  it  because  it  is  good  for  us. 


180  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

The  reason  it  tastes  sweet  to  us  is  because  it  is  good 
for  us.  So  man  makes  a  virtue  out  of  necessity,  a 
pleasure  out  of  duty,  which  is  the  essence  of  ethics. 

In  the  ancient  days  of  Ind  the  great  Raja  Trishanku 
possessed  an  earthly  paradise  that  had  been  con- 
structed for  his  delectation  by  a  magician.  Therein 
grew  all  manner  of  beautiful  flowers,  savory  herbs  and 
delicious  fruits  such  as  had  never  been  known  before 
outside  heaven.  Of  them  all  the  Raja  and  his  harems 
liked  none  better  than  the  reed  from  which  they  could 
suck  honey.  But  Indra,  being  a  jealous  god,  was  wroth 
when  he  looked  down  and  beheld  mere  mortals  enjoying 
such  delights.  So  he  willed  the  destruction  of  the  en- 
chanted garden.  With  drought  and  tempest  it  was 
devastated,  with  fire  and  hail,  until  not  a  leaf  was  left 
of  its  luxuriant  vegetation  and  the  ground  was  bare  as 
a  threshing  floor.  But  the  roots  of  the  sugar  cane  are 
not  destroyed  though  the  stalk  be  cut  down;  so  when 
men  ventured  to  enter  the  desert  where  once  had  been 
this  garden  of  Eden,  they  found  the  cane  had  grown  up 
again  and  they  carried  away  cuttings  of  it  and  culti- 
vated it  in  their  gardens.  Thus  it  happened  that  the 
nectar  of  the  gods  descended  first  to  monarchs  and 
their  favorites,  then  was  spread  among  the  people  and 
carried  abroad  to  other  lands  until  now  any  child  with 
a  penny  in  his  hand  may  buy  of  the  best  of  it.  So  it 
has  been  with  many  things.  So  may  it  be  with  all 
things. 


WHAT  COMES  FROM  CORN 

The  discovery  of  America  dowered  mankind  with  a 
world  of  new  flora.  The  early  explorers  in  their  haste 
to  gather  up  gol^  paid  little  attention  to  the  more  valu- 
able products  of  field  and  forest,  but  in  the  course  of 
centuries  their  usefulness  has  become  universally  rec- 
ognized. The  potato  and  tomato,  which  Europe  at  first 
considered  as  unfit  for  food  or  even  as  poisonous,  have 
now  become  indispensable  among  all  classes.  New 
World  drugs  like  quinine  and  cocaine  have  been 
adopted  into  every  pharmacopeia.  Cocoa  is  proving 
a  rival  of  tea  and  coffee,  and  even  the  banana  has  made 
its  appearance  in  European  markets.  Tobacco  and 
chicle  occupy  the  nostrils  and  jaws  of  a  large  part  of 
the  human  race.  Maize  and  rubber  are  become  the 
common  property  of  mankind,  but  still  may  be  called 
American.  The  United  States  alone  raises  four-fifths 
of  the  corn  and  uses  three-fourths  of  the  caoutchouc  of 
the  world. 

All  flesh  is  grass.  This  may  be  taken  in  a  dietary  as 
well  as  a  metaphorical  sense.  The  graminaceae  pro- 
vide the  greater  part  of  the  sustenance  of  man  and 
beast;  hay  and  cereals,  wheat,  oats,  rye,  barley,  rice, 
sugar  cane,  sorghum  and  corn.  From  an  American 
viewpoint  the  greatest  of  these,  physically  and  finan- 
cially, is  com.  The  corn  crop  of  the  United  States  for 
1917,  amounting  to  3,159,000,000  bushels,  brought  in 

181 


182  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

more  money  than  the  wheat,  cotton,  potato  and  rye 
crops  all  together. 

When  Columbus  reached  the  West  Indies  he  found 
the  savages  playing  with  rubber  balls,  smoking  incense 
sticks  of  tobacco  and  eating  cakes  made  of  a  new  grain 
that  they  called  mahiz.  When  Pizarro  invaded  Peru 
he  found  this  same  cereal  used  by  the  natives  not  only 
for  food  but  also  for  making  alcoholic  liquor,  in  spite  of 
the  efforts  of  the  Incas  to  enforce  prohibition.  When 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  penetrated  into  the  woods  back  of 
Plymouth  Harbor  they  discovered  a  cache  of  Indian 
com.  So  throughout  the  three  Americas,  from  Canada 
to  Peru,  com  was  king  and  it  has  proved  worthy  to  rank 
with  the  rival  cereals  of  other  continents,  the  wheat  of 
Europe  and  the  rice  of  Asia.  But  food  habits  are  hard 
to  change  and  for  the  most  part  the  people  of  the  Old 
World  are  still  ignorant  of  the  delights  of  hasty  pud- 
ding and  Indian  pudding,  of  hoe-cake  and  hominy,  of 
sweet  corn  and  popcorn.  I  remember  thirty  years  ago 
seeing  on  a  London  stand  a  heap  of  dejected  popcorn 
balls  labeled  '*  Novel  American  Confection.  Please 
Try  One.*'  But  nobody  complied  with  this  pitiful  ap- 
peal but  me  and  I  was  sorry  that  I  did.  Americans 
used  to  respond  with  a  shipload  of  corn  whenever  an 
appeal  came  from  famine  sufferers  in  Armenia,  Russia, 
Ireland,  India  or  Austria,  but  their  generosity  was 
chilled  when  they  found  that  their  gift  was  resented  as 
an  insult  or  as  an  attempt  to  poison  the  impoverished 
population,  who  declared  that  they  would  rather  die 
than  eat  it— and  some  of  them  did.  Our  Department 
of  Agriculture  sent  maize  missionaries  to  Europe  with 


WHAT  COMES  FROM  CORN  183 

farmers  and  millers  as  educators  and  expert  cooks  to 
serve  free  flapjacks  and  pones,  but  the  propaganda 
made  little  impression  and  today  Americans  are  urged 
to  eat  more  of  their  own  com  because  the  famished 
families  of  the  war-stricken  region  will  not  touch  it. 
Just  so  the  beggars  of  Munich  revolted  at  potato  soup 
when  the  pioneer  of  American  food  chemists,  Rumf ord, 
attempted  to  introduce  this  transatlantic  dish. 

But  here  we  are  not  so  much  concerned  with  com 
foods  as  we  are  with  its  manufactured  products.  If 
you  split  a  kernel  in  two  you  will  find  that  it  consists  of 
three  parts;  a  hard  and  homy  hull  on  the  outside,  a 
small  oily  and  nitrogenous  germ  at  the  point,  and  a 
white  body  consisting  mostly  of  starch.  Each  of  these 
is  worked  up  into  various  products,  as  may  be  seen 
from  the  accompanying  table.  The  hull  forms  bran 
and  may  be  mixed  with  the  gluten  as  a  cattle  food. 
The  com  steeped  for  several  days  with  sulfurous  acid 
is  disintegrated  and  on  being  ground  the  germs  are 
floated  off,  the  gluten  or  nitrogenous  portion  washed 
out,  the  starch  grains  settled  down  and  the  residue 
pressed  together  as  oil  cake  fodder.  The  refined  oil 
from  the  germ  is  marketed  as  a  table  or  cooking  oil 
under  the  name  of  ^*Mazola''  and  comes  into  competi- 
tion with  olive,  peanut  and  cottonseed  oil  in  the  making 
of  vegetable  substitutes  for  lard  and  butter.  Inferior 
grades  may  be  used  for  soaps  or  for  glycerin  and  per- 
haps nitroglycerin.  A  bushel  of  com  yields  a  pound  or 
more  of  oil.  From  the  corn  germ  also  is  extracted  a 
gum  called  ^'paragoP'  that  forms  an  acceptable  substi- 
tute for  rubber  in  certain  uses.    The  **red  rubber" 


184 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


sponges  and  the  eraser  tips  to  pencils  may  be  made  of 
it  and  it  can  contribute  some  twenty  per  cent,  to  the 
synthetic  soles  of  shoes. 


Corn  kernel 


germ 


corn  oil 


'  starch 


body 


CORN  PRODUCTS 

table  oil 
dyers'  oil 
soap 
glycerin 

rubber  substitute 
oil  cake 
oil  meal cattle  food 

table  starch 

laundry  starch 
'dextrose 

glucose 

maltose 

corn  syrup 

hydrol 

tanners'  sugar 

cerelose 

white  dextrin 

canary  dextrin 

British  gum 

envelop  dextrin 

foundry  dextrin 

amidex 

fvegetable  glue 
-|  vegetable  casein 

[gluten  meal 


hydrolyzed 


gluten 


hull. 


bran 


Starch,  which  constitutes  fifty-five  per  cent,  of  the 
corn  kernel,  can  be  converted  into  a  variety  of  products 
for  dietary  and  industrial  uses.  As  found  in  corn,  po- 
tatoes or  any  other  vegetables  starch  consists  of  small, 
round,  white,  hard  grains,  tasteless,  and  insoluble  in 
cold  water.  But  hot  water  converts  it  into  a  soluble, 
sticky  form  which  may  serve  for  starching  clothes  or 
making  cornstarch  pudding.  Carrying  the  process  fur- 
ther with  the  aid  of  a  little  acid  or  other  catalyst  it 
takes  up  water  and  goes  over  into  a  sugar,  dextrose, 


WHAT  COMES  FEOM  CORN  185 

jommonly  called  ** glucose/'    Expressed  in  chemical 
jhorthand  this  reaction  is 

CeH.oO,  +H20->^CeHiA 
starch       water    dextrose 

This  reaction  is  carried  out  on  forty  million  bushels 
)f  corn  a  year  in  the  United  States.  The  **  starch 
nilk/'  that  is,  the  starch  grains  washed  out  from  the 
lisintegrated  com  kernel  by  water,  is  digested  in  large 
)ressure  tanks  under  fifty  pounds  of  steam  with  a  few 
enths  of  one  per  cent,  of  hydrochloric  acid  until  the 
•equired  degree  of  conversion  is  reached.  Then  the 
emaining  acid  is  neutralized  by  caustic  soda  and 
lereby  converted  into  common  salt,  which  in  this  small 
mount  does  not  interfere  but  rather  enhances  the  taste, 
'he  product  is  the  commercial  glucose  or  corn  syrup, 
rhich  may  if  desired  be  evaporated  to  a  white  powder, 
t  is  a  mixture  of  three  derivatives  of  starch  in  about 
his  proportion: 

Maltose    45  per  cent. 

Dextrose    20  per  cent. 

Dextrin   35  per  cent. 

There  are  also  present  three-  or  four-tenths  of  one 
er  cent,  salt  and  as  much  of  the  com  protein  and  a 
ariable  amount  of  water.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the 
lucose  (dextrose),  which  gives  name  to  the  whole,  is 
le  least  of  the  three  ingredients. 

Maltose,  or  malt  sugar,  has  the  same  composition  as 
me  sugar  (CisHogOu),  but  is  not  nearly  so  sweet, 
'extrin,  or  starch  paste,  is  not  sweet  at  all.  Dextrose 
r  glucose  is  otherwise  known  as  grape  sugar,  for  it  is 
)mmonly  found  in  grapes  and  other  ripe  fruits.    It 


186  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

forms  half  of  honey  and  it  is  one  of  the  two  products 
into  which  cane  sugar  splits  up  when  we  take  it  into  the 
mouth.  It  is  not  so  sweet  as  cane  sugar  and  cannot  be 
60  readily  crystallized,  which,  however,  is  not  alto- 
gether a  disadvantage. 

The  process  of  changing  starch  into  dextrose  that 
takes  place  in  the  great  steam  kettles  of  the  glucose 
factory  is  essentially  the  same  as  that  which  takes  place 
in  the  ripening  of  fruit  and  in  the  digestion  of  starch. 
A  large  part  of  our  nutriment,  therefore,  consists  of 
glucose  either  eaten  as  such  in  ripe  fruits  or  produced 
in  the  mouth  or  stomach  by  the  decomposition  of  the 
starch  of  unripe  fruit,  vegetables  and  cereals.  Glucose 
may  be  regarded  as  a  predigested  food.  In  spite  of 
this  well-known  fact  we  still  sometimes  read  **pooi 
food''  articles  in  which  glucose  is  denounced  as  a  dan- 
gerous adulterant  and  even  classed  as  a  poison. 

The  other  ingredients  of  commercial  glucose,  the 
maltose  and  dextrin,  have  of  course  the  same  food  value 
as  the  dextrose,  since  they  are  made  over  into  dextrose 
in  the  process  of  digestion.  AVhether  the  glucose  syrup 
is  fit  to  eat  depends,  like  anything  else,  on  how  it  is 
made.  If,  as  was  formerly  sometimes  the  case,  sulfuric 
acid  was  used  to  effect  the  conversion  of  the  starch  oij 
sulfurous  acid  to  bleach  the  glucose  and  these  acids 
were  not  altogether  eliminated,  the  product  might  b( 
unwholesome  or  worse.  Some  years  ago  in  Englanc 
there  was  a  mysterious  epidemic  of  arsenical  poisoning 
among  beer  drinkers.  On  tracing  it  back  it  was  f  ounc 
that  the  beer  had  been  made  from  glucose  which  ha( 
been  made  from  sulfuric  acid  which  had  been  mad» 
from  sulfur  which  had  been  made  from  a  batch  of  iroi 


WHAT  COMES  FKOM  COKN  187 

pyrites  which  contained  a  little  arsenic.  The  replace- 
ment of  sulfuric  acid  by  hydrochloric  has  done  away 
with  that  danger  and  the  glucose  now  produced  is  pure. 

The  old  recipe  for  home-made  candy  called  for  the 
addition  of  a  little  vinegar  to  the  sugar  syrup  to  pre- 
vent *^ graining."  The  purpose  of  the  acid  was  of 
course  to  invert  part  of  the  cane  sugar  to  glucose  so  as 
to  keep  it  from  crystallizing  out  again.  The  profes- 
sional candy-maker  now  uses  the  corn  glucose  for  that 
purpose,  so  if  we  accuse  him  of  *' adulteration''  on  that 
'round  we  must  levy  the  same  accusation  against  our 
Grandmothers.  The  introduction  of  glucose  into  candy 
nanufacture  has  not  injured  but  greatly  increased  the 
sale  of  sugar  for  the  same  purpose.  This  is  not  an 
mcommon  effect  of  scientific  progress,  for  as  we  have 
)bserved,  the  introduction  of  synthetic  perfumes  has 
timulated  the  production  of  odoriferous  flowers  and 
he  price  of  butter  has  gone  up  with  the  introduction 
)f  margarin.  So,  too,  there  are  more  weavers  em- 
3loyed  and  they  get  higher  wages  than  in  the  days  when 
hey  smashed  up  the  first  weaving  machines,  and  the 
ame  is  true  of  printers  and  typesetting  machines, 
'he  popular  animosity  displayed  toward  any  new 
ichievement  of  applied  science  is  never  justified,  for  it 
)enefits  not  only  the  world  as  a  whole  but  usually  even 
hose  interests  with  which  it  seems  at  first  to  conflict. 

The  chemist  is  an  economizer.  It  is  his  special  busi- 
ess  to  hunt  up  waste  products  and  make  them  useful. 
Te  was,  for  instance,  worried  over  the  waste  of  the 
ores  and  skins  and  scraps  that  were  being  thrown 
.way  when  apples  were  put  up.  Apple  pulp  contains 
lectin,  which  is  what  makes  jelly  jell,  and  berries  and 


188  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

fruits  that  are  short  of  it  will  refuse  to  '^jell."  Bu1 
using  these  for  their  flavor  he  adds  apple  pulp  fo] 
pectin  and  glucose  for  smoothness  and  sugar  for  sweet 
ness  and,  if  necessary,  s}Tithetic  dyes  for  color,  he  is 
able  to  put  on  the  market  a  variety  of  jellies,  jams  anc 
marmalades  at  very  low  price.  The  same  principle 
applies  here  as  in  the  case  of  all  compounded  fooc 
products.  If  they  are  made  in  cleanly  fashion,  contaii 
no  harmful  ingredients  and  are  truthfully  labeled  ther( 
is  no  reason  for  objecting  to  them.  But  if  the  manu 
facturer  goes  so  far  as  to  put  strawberry  seeds — oi 
hayseed — into  his  artificial  ** strawberry  jam''  I  thinl 
that  might  properly  be  called  adulteration,  for  it  is  imi 
tating  the  imperfections  of  nature,  and  man  ought  t( 
be  too  proud  to  do  that. 

The  old-fashioned  open  kettle  molasses  consistec 
mostly  of  glucose  and  other  invert  sugars  togethe: 
with  such  cane  sugar  as  could  not  be  crystallized  out 
But  when  the  vacuum  pan  was  introduced  the  molassei 
was  impoverished  of  its  sweetness  and  beet  sugar  doei 
not  yield  any  molasses.  So  we  now  have  in  its  plac< 
the  corn  syrups  consisting  of  about  85  per  cent,  of  glu 
cose  and  15  per  cent,  of  sugar  flavored  with  maple  o: 
vanillin  or  whatever  we  like.  It  is  encouraging  to  sei 
the  bill  boards  proclaiming  the  virtues  of  *^Karo' 
syrup  and  *'Mazola"  oil  when  only  a  few  years  ago  thi 
products  of  our  national  cereal  were  without  honor  ii 
their  own  country. 

Many  other  products  besides  foods  are  made  fron 
corn  starch.  Dextrin  serves  in  place  of  the  old  **guii 
arable''  for  the  mucilage  of  our  envelopes  and  stamps 
Another  form  of  dextrin  sold  as  **Kordex"  is  used  t 


WHAT  COMES  FROM  CORN  189 

bold  together  the  sand  of  the  cores  of  castings.  After 
■he  casting  has  been  made  the  scorched  core  can  be 
shaken  out.  Glucose  is  used  in  place  of  sugar  as  a 
iller  for  cheap  soaps  and  for  leather. 

Altogether  more  than  a  hundred  different  commer- 
;ial  products  are  now  made  from  com,  not  counting 
;ob  pipes.  Every  year  the  factories  of  the  United 
States  work  up  over  50,000,000  bushels  of  com  into 
500,000,000  pounds  of  corn  symp,  600,000,000  pounds 
>f  starch,  230,000,000  pounds  of  corn  sugar,  625,000,000 
)ound3  of  gluten  feed,  90,000,000  pounds  of  oil  and 
'0,000,000  pounds  of  oil  cake. 

Two  million  bushels  of  cobs  are  wasted  every  year  in 
;he  United  States.  Can't  something  be  made  out  of 
hem?  This  is  the  question  that  is  agitating  the  chem- 
sts  of  the  Carbohydrate  Laboratory  of  the  Depart- 
oent  of  Agriculture  at  Washington.  They  have  found 
t  possible  to  work  up  the  com  cobs  into  glucose  and 
:ylose  by  heating  with  acid.  But  glucose  can  be  more 
heaply  obtained  from  other  starchy  or  woody  mate- 
ials  and  they  cannot  find  a  market  for  the  xylose. 
?his  is  a  sort  of  a  sugar  but  only  about  half  as  sweet 
s  that  from  cane.  Who  can  invent  a  use  for  itf 
iore  promising  is  the  discovery  by  this  laboratory  that 
y  digesting  the  cobs  with  hot  water  there  c::n  be  ex- 
racted  about  30  per  cent,  of  a  gum  suitable  for  bill 
osting  and  labeling. 

Since  the  starches  and  sugars  belong  to  the  same 

ass  of  compounds  as  the  celluloses  they  also  can  be 
cted  upon  by  nitric  acid  with  the  production  of  explo- 

ves  like  guncotton.  Nitro-sugar  has  not  come  into 
ammon  use,  but  nitro-starch  is  found  to  be  one  of 


190  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

safest  of  tlie  high,  explosives.  On  account  of  the  dan- 
ger of  decomposition  and  spontaneous  explosion  frona 
the  presence  of  foreign  substances  the  materials  in 
explosives  must  be  of  the  purest  possible.  It  was  for- 
merly thought  that  tapioca  must  be  imported  from  Java 
for  making  nitro-starch.  But  during  the  war  when 
shipping  was  short,  the  War  Department  found  that  it 
could  be  made  better  and  cheaper  from  our  home-grown 
com  starch.  When  the  war  closed  the  United  States 
was  making  1,720,000  pounds  of  nitro-starch  a  montl 
for  loading  hand  grenades.  So,  too,  the  Post  Office 
Department  discovered  that  it  could  use  mucilag( 
made  of  corn  dextrin  as  well  as  that  which  used  to  bf 
made  from  tapioca.  This  is  progress  in  the  right  dii 
rection.  It  would  be  well  to  divert  some  of  the  ener 
getic  efforts  now  devoted  to  the  increase  of  commerce 
to  the  discovery  of  ways  of  reducing  the  need  for  com 
merce  by  the  development  of  home  products.  There  ii 
no  merit  in  simply  hauling  things  around  the  world. 

In  the  last  chapter  we  saw  how  dextrose  or  glucosf 
could  be  converted  by  fermentation  into  alcohol.  Since 
com  starch,  as  we  have  here  seen,  can  be  converted  int( 
dextrose,  it  can  serve  as  a  source  of  alcohol.  This  was 
in  fact,  one  of  the  earliest  misuses  to  which  com  wai 
put,  and  before  the  war  put  a  stop  to  it  34,000,00( 
bushels  went  to  the  making  of  whisky  in  the  Unitec 
States  every  year,  not  counting  the  moonshiners'  out 
put.  But  even  though  we  left  off  drinking  whisky  th 
distillers  could  still  thrive.  Mars  is  more  thirsty  tha: 
Bacchus.  The  output  of  alcohol,  denatured  for  Indus 
trial  purposes,  is  more  than  three  times  what  it  wa 
before  the  war,  and  the  price  has  risen  from  30  cents 


WHAT  COMES  FROM  CORN  19i 

gallon  to  67  cents.     This  may  make  it  profitable  to 

dtilize  sugars,  starches  and  cellulose  that  formerly  were 

out  of  the  question.    According  to  the  calculations  of 

the  Forest  Products  Laboratory  of  Madison  it  costs 

from  37  to  44  cents  a  gallon  to  make  alcohol  from  corn, 

Dut  it  may  be  made  from  sawdust  at  a  cost  of  from  14 

o  20  cents.     This  is  not  **wood  alcohol' '   (that  is, 

nethyl  alcohol,  CH4O)  such  as  is  made  by  the  destruc- 

ive  distillation  of  wood,  but  genuine  ** grain  alcohol*' 

ethyl  alcohol,  CsHgO),  such  as  is  made  by  the  fermen- 

ation  of  glucose  or  other  sugar.    The  first  step  in  the 

process  is  to  digest  the  sawdust  or  chips  with  dilute 

ulfuric  acid  under  heat  and  pressure.     This  converts 

;he  cellulose  (wood  fiber)  in  large  part  into  glucose 

*^corn  sugar' ')  which  may  be  extracted  by  hot  water 

n  a  diffusion  battery  as  in  extracting  the  sugar  from 

)eet  chips.     This  glucose  solution  may  then  be  fer- 

nented  by  yeast  and  the  resulting  alcohol  distilled  off. 

?he  process  is  perfectly  practicable  but  has  yet  to  be 

)roved  profitable.    But  the  sulfite  liquors  of  the  paper 

nills  are  being  worked  up  successfully  into  industrial 

ilcohol. 

The  rapidly  approaching  exhaustion  of  our  oil  fields 
v^hich  the  war  has  accelerated  leads  us  to  look  around  to 
ee  what  we  can  get  to  take  the  place  of  gasoline.  One 
f  the  most  promising  of  the  suggested  substitutes  is 
Icohol.  The  United  States  is  exceptionally  rich  in 
aineral  oil,  but  some  countries,  for  instance  England, 
Srermany,  France  and  Australia,  have  little  or  none, 
'he  Australian  Advisory  Council  of  Science,  called  to 
onsider  the  problem,  recommends  alcohol  for  station- 
ry  engines  and  motor  cars.    Alcohol  has  the  disadvan- 


192  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

tage  of  being  less  volatile  than  gasoline  so  it  is  hard  to 
start  up  the  engine  from  the  cold.  But  the  lower  vola- 
tility and  ignition  point  of  alcohol  are  an  advantage  in 
that  it  can  be  put  under  a  pressure  of  150  pounds  to  the 
square  inch.  A  pound  of  gasoline  contains  fifty  per 
cent,  more  potential  energy  than  a  pound  of  alcohol, 
but  since  the  alcohol  vapor  can  be  put  under  twice  the 
compression  of  the  gasoline  and  requires  only  one-third 
the  amount  of  air,  the  thermal  efficiency  of  an  alcohol 
engine  may  be  fifty  per  cent,  higher  than  that  of  a  gaso- 
line engine.  Alcohol  also  has  several  other  conven- 
iences that  can  count  in  its  favor.  In  the  case  of  in- 
complete combustion  the  cylinders  are  less  likely  to  be 
clogged  with  carbon  and  the  escaping  gases  do  not  have 
the  offensive  odor  of  the  gasoline  smoke.  Alcohol  does 
not  ignite  so  easily  as  gasoline  and  the  fire  is  more 
readily  put  out,  for  water  thrown  upon  blazing  alcohol 
dilutes  it  and  puts  out  the  flame  while  gasoline  floats 
on  water  and  the  fire  is  spread  by  it.  It  is  possible  tc 
increase  the  inflammability  of  alcohol  by  mixing  with  i1 
some  hydrocarbon  such  as  gasoline,  benzene  or  acety- 
lene. In  the  Taylor- White  process  the  vapor  from  low 
grade  alcohol  containing  17  per  cent,  water  is  passec 
over  calcium  carbide.  This  takes  out  the  water  anc 
adds  acetylene  gas,  making  a  suitable  mixture  for  ai 
internal  combustion  engine. 

Alcohol  can  be  made  from  anything  of  a  starchy 
sugary  or  woody  nature,  that  is,  from  the  main  sut 
stance  of  all  vegetation.    If  we  start  with  wood  (cellu 
lose)  we  convert  it  first  into  sugar  (glucose)  and,  oi 
course,  we  could  stop  here  and  use  it  for  food  insteat 


WHAT  COMES  FKOM  CORN  193 

of  carrying  it  on  into  alcohol.  This  provides  one  fac- 
tor of  our  food,  the  carbohydrate,  but  by  growing  the 
yeast  plants  on  glucose  and  feeding  them  with  nitrates 
made  from  the  air  we  can  get  the  protein  and  fat.  So 
it  is  quite  possible  to  live  on  sawdust,  although  it  would 
be  too  expensive  a  diet  for  anybody  but  a  millionaire, 
and  he  would  not  enjoy  it.  Glucose  has  been  made 
from  formaldehyde  and  this  in  turn  made  from  carbon, 
lydrogen  and  oxygen,  so  the  s\Tithetic  production  of 
Pood  from  the  elements  is  not  such  an  absurdity  as  it 
was  thought  when  Berthelot  suggested  it  half  a  cen- 
:ury  ago. 

The  first  step  in  the  making  of  alcohol  is  to  change 
;he  starch  over  into  sugar.     This  transformation  is  ef- 
fected in  the  natural  course  of  sprouting  by  which  the 
nsoluble  starch  stored  up  in  the  seed  is  converted  into 
he  soluble  glucose  for  the  sap  of  the  growing  plant. 
?his  malting  process  is  that  mainly  made  use  of  in  the 
)roduction  of  alcohol  from  grain.    But  there  are  other 
vRjs  of  effecting  the  change.    It  may  be  done  by 
leating  with  acid  as  we  have  seen,  or  according  to  a 
Qethod  now  being  developed  the  final  conversion  may 
le  accomplished  by  mold  instead  of  malt.    In  applying 
i'  bis  method,  known  as  the  amylo  process,  to  com,  the 
^  leal  is  mixed  with  twice  its  weight  of  water,  acidified 
rith  hydrochloric  acid  and  steamed.     The  mash  is  then 
ajooled  down  somewhat,  diluted  with  sterilized  water 
'^  nd  innoculated  with  the  mucor  filaments.    As  the 
ilf  lash  molds  the  starch  is  gradually  changed  over  to 
lucose  and  if  this  is  the  product  desired  the  process 
;3  lay  be  stopped  at  this  point.    But  if  alcohol  is  wanted 


194  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

yeast  is  added  to  ferment  the  sugar.  By  keeping  it  al- 
kaline and  treating  with  the  proper  bacteria  a  high 
yield  of  glycerin  can  be  obtained. 

In  the  fermentation  process  for  making  alcoholic 
liquors  a  little  glycerin  is  produced  as  a  by-product. 
Glycerin,  otherwise  called  glycerol,  is  intermediate  be- 
tween sugar  and  alcohol.  Its  molecule  contains  three 
carbon  atoms,  while  glucose  has  six  and  alcohol  two. 
It  is  possible  to  increase  the  yield  of  glycerin  if  desired 
by  varying  the  form  of  fermentation.  This  was  de- 
sired most  earnestly  in  Germany  during  the  war,  for 
the  British  blockade  shut  off  the  importation  of  the 
fats  and  oils  from  which  the  Germans  extracted  the 
glycerin  for  their  nitroglycerin.  Under  pressure  of: 
this  necessity  they  worked  out  a  process  of  getting, 
glycerin  in  quantity  from  sugar  and,  news  of  this  being! 
brought  to  this  country  by  Dr.  Alonzo  Taylor,  the 
United  States  Treasury  Department  set  up  a  special 
laboratory  to  work  out  this  problem.  John  R.  Eoff  and 
other  chemists  working  in  this  laboratory  succeeded  in 
getting  a  yield  of  twenty  per  cent,  of  glycerin  by  fer- 
menting black  strap  molasses  or  other  syrup  with  Cali- 
fornia wine  yeast.  During  the  fermentation  it  is  neces- 
sary to  neutralize  the  acetic  acid  formed  with  sodiun! 
or  calcium  carbonate.  It  was  estimated  that  glycerir 
could  be  made  from  waste  sugars  at  about  a  quarter  ol, 
its  war-time  cost,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  procesgj 
would  be  profitable  at  normal  prices.  j 

We  can,  if  we  like,  dispense  with  either  yeast  or  ba©; 
teria  in  the  production  of  glycerin.  Glucose  syrup  sus- 
pended in  oil  under  steam  pressure  with  finely  dividec 
nickel  as  a  catalyst  and  treated  with  nascent  hydrogei 


WHAT  COMES  FEOM  COEN  195 

will  take  up  the  hydrogen  and  be  converted  into  gly- 
cerin. But  the  yield  is  poor  and  the  process  expensive. 
Food  serves  substantially  the  same  purpose  in  the 
body  as  fuel  in  the  engine.  It  provides  the  energy  for 
work.  The  carbohydrates,  that  is  the  sugars,  starches 
and  celluloses,  can  all  be  used  as  fuels  and  can  all — 
even,  as  we  have  seen,  the  cellulose — be  used  as  foods. 
The  final  products,  water  and  carbon  dioxide,  are  in 
both  cases  the  same  and  necessarily  therefore  the 
amount  of  energy  produced  is  the  same  in  the  body  as 
in  the  engine.  Com  is  a  good  example  of  the  equiva- 
lence of  the  two  sources  of  energy.  There  are  few  bet- 
ter foods  and  no  better  fuels.  I  can  remember  the  good 
old  days  in  Kansas  when  we  had  com  to  burn.  It  was 
both  an  economy  and  a  luxury,  for — at  ten  cents  a 
bushel — it  was  cheaper  than  coal  or  wood  and  prefer- 
able to  either  at  any  price.  The  long  yellow  ears,  each 
wrapped  in  its  own  kindling,  could  be  handled  without 
crocking  the  fingers.  Each  kernel  as  it  crackled  sent 
out  a  blazing  jet  of  oil  and  the  cobs  left  a  fine  bed  of 
coals  for  the  corn  popper  to  be  shaken  over.  Drift- 
wood and  the  pyrotechnic  fuel  they  make  now  by  soak- 
ing sticks  in  strontium  and  copper  salts  cannot  compare 
with  the  old-fashioned  corn-fed  fire  in  beauty  and  the 
30wer  of  evoking  visions.  Doubtless  such  luxury 
would  be  condemned  as  wicked  nowadays,  but  those 
who  have  known  the  calorific  value  of  com  would  find 
it  hard  to  abandon  it  altogether,  and  I  fancy  that  the 
W"'estem  farmer's  wife,  when  she  has  an  extra  batch 
3f  baking  to  do,  will  still  steal  a  few  ears  from  the  crib. 


XI 

SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE 

All  life  and  all  that  life  accomplishes  depend  upon 
the  supply  of  solar  energy  stored  in  the  form  of  food. 
The  chief  sources  of  this  vital  energy  are  the  fats  and 
the  sugars.  The  former  contain  two  and  a  quarter 
times  the  potential  energy  of  the  latter.  Both,  when 
completely  purified,  consist  of  nothing  but  carbon,  hy- 
drogen and  oxygen;  elements  that  are  to  be  found 
freely  everywhere  in  air  and  water.  So  when  the 
sunny  southland  exports  fats  and  oils,  starches  and 
sugar,  it  is  then  sending  away  nothing  material  but 
what  comes  back  to  it  in  the  next  wind.  What  it  is 
sending  to  the  regions  of  more  slanting  sunshine  is: 
merely  some  of  the  surplus  of  the  radiant  energy  it  has 
received  so  abundantly,  compacted  for  convenience  into 
a  portable  and  edible  form. 

In  previous  chapters  I  have  dealt  with  some  of  th€ 
uses  of  cotton,  its  employment  for  cloth,  for  paper,  foi 
artificial  fibers,  for  explosives,  and  for  plastics.  Bui 
I  have  ignored  the  thing  that  cotton  is  attached  to  and 
for  which,  in  the  economy  of  nature,  the  fibers  are 
formed;  that  is,  the  seed.  It  is  as  though  I  had  de- 
scribed the  aeroplane  and  ignored  the  aviator  whom  i1 
was  designed  to  carry.  But  in  this  neglect  I  am  bu1 
following  the  example  of  the  human  race,  which  foi 
three  thousand  years  used  the  fiber  but  made  no  use 
of  the  seed  except  to  plant  the  next  crop. 

196 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  197 

Just  as  mankind  is  now  divided  into  the  two  great 
classes,  the  wheat-eaters  and  the  rice-eaters,  so  the 
ancient  world  was  divided  into  the  wool-wearers  and 
the  cotton-wearers.  The  people  of  India  wore  cotton ; 
the  Europeans  wore  wool.  When  the  Greeks  under 
Alexander  fought  their  way  to  the  Far  East  they  were 
surprised  to  find  wool  growing  on  trees.  Later  travel- 
ers returning  from  Cathay  told  of  the  same  marvel 
and  travelers  who  stayed  at  home  and  wrote  about  what 
they  had  not  seen,  like  Sir  John  Maundeville,  misunder- 
stood these  reports  and  elaborated  a  legend  of  a  tree 
that  bore  live  lambs  as  fruit.  Here,  for  instance,  is 
how  a  French  poetical  botanist,  Delacroix,  described 
it  in  1791,  as  translated  from  his  Latin  verse : 

Upon  a  stalk  is  fixed  a  living  brute, 

A  rooted  plant  bears  quadruped  for  fruit ; 

It  has  a  fleece,  nor  does  it  want  for  eyes, 

And  from  its  brows  two  wooly  horns  arise. 

The  rude  and  simple  country  people  say 

It  is  an  animal  that  sleeps  by  day 

And  wakes  at  night,  though  rooted  to  the  ground, 

To  feed  on  grass  within  its  reach  around. 

But  modern  commerce  broke  down  the  barrier  be- 
tween East  and  West.  A  new  cotton  country,  the  best 
in  the  world,  was  discovered  in  America.  Cotton  in- 
vaded England  and  after  a  hard  fight,  with  fists  as  well 
as  finance,  wool  was  beaten  in  its  chief  stronghold. 
Cotton  became  King  and  the  wool-sack  in  the  House  of 
Lords  lost  its  symbolic  significance. 

Still  two-thirds  of  the  cotton  crop,  the  seed,  was 
lasted  and  it  is  only  within  the  last  fifty  years  that 


198 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


methods  of  using  it  have  been  developed  to  any  extent. 
The  cotton  crop  of  the  United  States  for  1917 
amounted  to  about  11,000,000  bales  of  500  pounds  each. 
When  the  Great  War  broke  out  and  no  cotton  could  be 
exported  to  Germany  and  little  to  England  the  South 
was  in  despair,  for  cotton  went  down  to  five  or  six  cents 
a  pound.  The  national  Government,  regardless  of 
states'  rights,  was  called  upon  for  aid  and  everybody 
was  besought  to  *^buy  a  bale.''  Those  who  responded 
to  this  patriotic  appeal  were  well  rewarded,  for  cotton 


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SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  199 

rose  as  the  war  went  on  and  sold  at  twenty-nine  cents  a 
pound. 


O  £3  :c  I 


200  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

But  the  chemist  has  added  some  $150,000,000  a  year 
to  the  value  of  the  crop  by  discovering  ways  of  utilizing 
the  cottonseed  that  used  to  be  thrown  away  or  burned 
as  fuel.  The  genealogical  table  of  the  progeny  of  the 
cottonseed  herewith  printed  will  give  some  idea  of  their 
variety.  If  you  will  examine  a  cottonseed  you  will  see 
first  that  there  is  a  fine  fuzz  of  cotton  fiber  sticking  to 
it.  These  linters  can  be  removed  by  machinery  and 
used  for  any  purpose  where  length  of  fiber  is  not  essen- 
tial. For  instance,  they  may  be  nitrated  as  described 
in  previous  articles  and  used  for  making  smokeless 
powder  or  celluloid. 

On  cutting  open  the  seed  you  will  observe  that  it  con- 
sists of  an  oily,  mealy  kernel  encased  in  a  thin  brown 
hull.  The  hulls,  amounting  to  700  or  900  pounds  in  a 
ton  of  seed,  were  formerly  burned.  Now,  however, 
they  bring  from  $4  to  $10  a  ton  because  they  can  be 
ground  up  into  cattle-feed  or  paper  stock  or  used  as 
fertilizer. 

The  kernel  of  the  cottonseed  on  being  pressed  yields 
a  yellow  oil  and  leaves  a  mealy  cake.  This  last,  mixed 
with  the  hulls,  makes  a  good  fodder  for  fattening  cattle. 
Also,  adding  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  refined  cotton- 
seed meal  to  our  war  bread  made  it  more  nutritious  and 
no  less  palatable.  Cottonseed  meal  contains  about 
forty  per  cent,  of  protein  and  is  therefore  a  highly 
concentrated  and  very  valuable  feeding  stuff.  Before 
the  war  we  were  exporting  nearly  half  a  million  tons 
of  cottonseed  meal  to  Europe,  chiefly  to  Germany  and 
Denmark,  where  it  is  used  for  dairy  cows.  The  British 
yeoman,  his  country's  pride,  has  not  yet  been  won  over 
to  the  use  of  any  such  newfangled  fodder  and  oonse- 


Photo  by  Press  Illustrating  Service 

COTTONSEED  OIL  AS  IT  IS  SQUEEZED  FROM  THE  SEED  BY  THE  PRESSES 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  201 

quently  the  British  manufacturer  could  not  compete 
with  his  continental  rivals  in  the  seed- crushing  busi- 
ness, for  he  could  not  dispose  of  his  meal-cake  by- 
product as  did  they. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  most  valuable  of  the  cotton- 
seed products,  the  oil.  The  seed  contains  about  twenty 
per  cent,  of  oil,  most  of  which  can  be  squeezed  out  of 
the  hot  seeds  by  hydraulic  pressure.  It  comes  out  as  a 
red  liquid  of  a  disagreeable  odor.  This  is  decolorized, 
deodorized  and  otherwise  purified  in  various  ways :  by 
treatment  with  alkalies  or  acids,  by  blowing  air  and 
steam  through  it,  by  shaking  up  with  fuller's  earth,  by 
settling  and  filtering.  The  refined  product  is  a  yellow 
oil,  suitable  for  table  use.  Formerly,  on  account  of  the 
popular  prejudice  against  any  novel  food  products,  it 
used  to  masquerade  as  olive  oil.  Now,  however,  it 
boldly  competes  with  its  ancient  rival  in  the  lands  of 
the  olive  tree  and  America  ships  some  700,000  barrels 
of  cottonseed  oil  a  year  to  the  Mediterranean.  The 
Turkish  Grovemment  tried  to  check  the  spread  of  cot- 
tonseed oil  by  calling  it  an  adulterant  and  prohibiting 
its  mixture  with  olive  oil.  The  result  was  that  the  sale 
of  Turkish  olive  oil  fell  off  because  people  found  its 
flavor  too  strong  when  undiluted.  Italy  imports  cot- 
tonseed oil  and  exports  her  olive  oil.  Denmark  im- 
ports cottonseed  meal  and  margariae  and  exports  her 
butter. 

Northern  i^ations  are  accustomed  to  hard  fats  and 
do  not  take  to  oils  for  cooking  or  table  use  as  do  the 
southerners.  Butter  and  lard  are  preferred  to  olive  oil 
and  ghee.  But  this  does  not  rule  out  cottonseed.  It 
can  be  combined  with  the  hard  fats  of  animal  or  vege- 


202  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

table  origin  in  margarine  or  it  may  itself  be  hardened 
by  hydrogen. 

To  understand  this  interesting  reaction  which  is  pro- 
foundly affecting  international  relations  it  will  be  nec- 
essary to  dip  into  the  chemistry  of  the  subject.  Here 
are  the  symbols  of  the  chief  ingredients  of  the  fats  and 
oils.    Please  look  at  them. 

Linoleic  acid CigHggOg 

Oleic  acid  C18H34O2 

Stearic  acid CigHgeOg 

Don't  skip  these  because  you  have  not  studied  chem- 
istry. That 's  why  I  am  giving  them  to  you.  If  you 
had  studied  chemistry  you  would  know  them  without 
my  telling.  Just  examine  them  and  you  will  discover 
the  secret.  You  will  see  that  all  three  are  composed  of 
the  same  elements,  carbon,  hydrogen  and  oxygen.  No- 
tice next  the  number  of  atoms  of  each  element  as  indi- 
cated by  the  little  low  figures  on  the  right  of  each  letter. 
You  observe  that  all  three  contain  the  same  number  of 
atoms  of  carbon  and  oxygen  but  differ  in  the  amount 
of  hydrogen.  This  trifling  difference  in  composition 
makes  a  great  difference  in  behavior.  The  less  the 
hydrogen  the  lower  the  melting  point.  Or  to  say  the 
same  thing  in  other  words,  fatty  substances  low  in  hy- 
drogen are  apt  to  be  liquids  and  those  with  a  full  com- 
plement of  hydrogen  atoms  are  apt  to  be  solids  at  the 
ordinary  temperature  of  the  air.  It  is  common  to  call 
the  former  **oils"  and  the  latter  **fats,''  but  that  im- 
plies too  great  a  dissimilarity,  for  the  distinction  de- 
pends on  whether  we  are  living  in  the  tropics  or  the 
arctic.    It  is  better,  therefore,  to  lump  them  all  to- 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  203 

gether  and  call  them  **soft  fats*'  and  **hard  fats,"  re- 
spectively. 

Fats  of  the  third  order,  the  stearic  group,  are  called 
'*  saturated  *'  because  they  have  taken  up  all  the  hydro- 
gen they  can  hold.  Fats  of  the  other  two  groups  are 
called  **  unsaturated.  *'  The  first,  which  have  the  least 
hydrogen,  are  the  most  eager  for  more.  If  hydrogen  is 
not  handy  they  will  take  up  other  things,  for  instance 
oxygen.  Linseed  oil,  which  consists  largely,  as  the 
name  implies,  of  linoleic  acid,  will  absorb  oxygen  on 
exposure  to  the  air  and  become  hard.  That  is  why  it  is 
used  in  painting.  Such  oils  are  called  ** drying*'  oils, 
although  the  hardening  process  is  not  really  drying, 
since  they  contain  no  water,  but  is  oxidation.  The 
*' semi-drying  oils,"  those  that  will  harden  somewhat  on 
exposure  to  the  air,  include  the  oils  of  cottonseed,  com, 
sesame,  soy  bean  and  castor  bean.  Olive  oil  and  peanut 
oil  are  *^ non-drying"  and  contain  oleic  compounds 
(olein).  The  hard  fats,  such  as  stearin,  palmitin  and 
margarin,  are  mostly  of  animal  origin,  tallow  and  lard, 
though  coconut  and  palm  oil  contain  a  large  proportion 
of  such  saturated  compounds. 

Though  the  chemist  talks  of  the  fatty  *' acids,"  no- 
body else  would  call  them  so  because  they  are  not  sour. 
But  they  do  behave  like  the  acids  in  forming  salts  with 
bases.  The  alkali  salts  of  the  fatty  acids  are  known  to 
us  as  soaps.  In  the  natural  fats  they  exist  not  as  free 
acids  but  as  salts  of  an  organic  base,  glycerin,  as  I  ex- 
plained in  a  previous  chapter.  The  natural  fats  and 
oils  consist  of  complex  mixtures  of  the  glycerin  com- 
pounds of  these  acids  (known  as  olein,  stearin,  etc.),  as 
well  as  various  others  of  a  similar  sort.    If  you  will 


204  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

set  a  bottle  of  salad  oil  in  the  ice-box  you  will  see  it 
separate  into  two  parts.  The  white,  crystalline  solid 
that  separates  out  is  largely  stearin.  The  part  that 
remains  liquid  is  largely  olein.  You  might  separate 
them  by  filtering  it  cold  and  if  then  you  tried  to  sell  the 
two  products  you  would  find  that  the  hard  fat  would 
bring  a  higher  price  than  the  oil,  either  for  food  or 
soap.  If  you  tried  to  keep  them  you  would  find  that  the 
hard  fat  kept  neutral  and  ** sweet''  longer  than  the 
other.  You  may  remember  that  the  perfumes  (as  well 
as  their  odorous  opposites)  were  mostly  unsaturated 
compounds.  So  we  find  that  it  is  the  free  and  unsatu- 
rated fatty  acids  that  cause  butter  and  oil  to  become 
rank  and  rancid. 

Obviously,  then,  we  could  make  money  if  we  could 
turn  soft,  unsaturated  fats  like  olein  into  hard,  satu- 
rated fats  like  stearin.  Eeferring  to  the  symbols  we 
see  that  all  that  is  needed  to  effect  the  change  is  to  get 
the  former  to  unite  with  hydrogen.  This  requires  a 
little  coaxing.  The  coaxer  is  called  a  catalyst.  A  cata- 
lyst, as  I  have  previously  explained,  is  a  substance  that 
by  its  mere  presence  causes  the  union  of  two  other  sub- 
stances that  might  otherwise  remain  separate.  For 
that  reason  the  catalyst  is  referred  to  as  **a  chemical 
parson.''  Finely  divided  metals  have  a  strong  cata- 
lytic action.  Platinum  sponge  is  excellent  but  too  ex- 
pensive. So  in  this  case  nickel  is  used.  A  nickel  salt 
mixed  with  charcoal  or  pumice  is  reduced  to  the  metal- 
lic state  by  heating  in  a  current  of  hydrogen.  Then  it 
is  dropped  into  the  tank  of  oil  and  hydrogen  gas  is 
blown  through.  The  hydrogen  may  be  obtained  by 
splitting  water  into  its  two  components,  hydrogen  and 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  205 

oxygen,  by  means  of  the  electrical  current,  or  by  pass- 
ing steam  over  spongy  iron  which  takes  out  the  oxygen. 
The  stream  of  hydrogen  blown  through  the  hot  oil  con- 
verts the  linoleic  acid  to  oleic  and  then  the  oleic  into 
stearic.  If  you  figured  up  the  weights  from  the  sym- 
bols given  above  you  would  find  that  it  takes  about  one 
pound  of  hydrogen  to  convert  a  hundred  pounds  of  olein 
to  stearin  and  the  cost  is  only  about  one  cent  a  pound. 
The  nickel  is  unchanged  and  is  easily  separated.  A 
trace  of  nickel  may  remain  in  the  product,  but  as  it  is 
very  much  less  than  the  amount  dissolved  when  food 
is  cooked  in  nickel-plated  vessels  it  cannot  be  regarded 
as  harmful. 

Even  more  unsaturated  fats  may  be  hydrogenated. 
Fish  oil  has  hitherto  been  almost  unusable  because  of 
its  powerful  and  persistent  odor.  This  is  chiefly  due 
to  a  fatty  acid  which  properly  bears  the  uneuphonious 
name  of  clupanodonic  acid  and  has  the  composition  of 
CigHasOg.  By  comparing  this  with  the  symbol  of  the 
odorless  stearic  acid,  CisHgeOg,  you  will  see  that  all  the 
rank  fish  oil  lacks  to  make  it  respectable  is  eight  hydro- 
gen atoms.  A  Japanese  chemist,  Tsujimoto,  has  dis- 
covered how  to  add  them  and  now  the  reformed  fish  oil 
under  the  names  of  *HalgoP'  and  **candelite''  serves 
for  lubricant  and  even  enters  higher  circles  as  a  soap  or 
food. 

This  process  of  hardening  fats  by  hydrogenation  re- 
sulted from  the  experiments  of  a  French  chemist.  Pro- 
fessor Sabatier  of  Toulouse,  in  the  last  years  of  the  last 
century,  but,  as  in  many  other  cases,  the  Germans  were 
the  first  to  take  it  up  and  profit  by  it.  Before  the  war 
the  copra  or  coconut  oil  from  the  British  Asiatic  colo- 


206  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

nies  of  India,  Ceylon  and  Malaya  went  to  Germany  at 
the  rate  of  $15,000,000  a  year.  The  palm  kernels  grown 
in  British  West  Africa  were  shipped,  not  to  Liverpool, 
but  to  Hamburg,  $19,000,000  worth  annually.  Here  the 
oil  was  pressed  out  and  used  for  margarin  and  the 
residual  cake  used  for  feeding  cows  produced  butter  or 
for  feeding  hogs  produced  lard.  Half  of  the  copra 
raised  in  the  British  possessions  was  sent  to  Germany 
and  half  of  the  oil  from  it  was  resold  to  the  British 
margarin  candle  and  soap  makers  at  a  handsome  profit. 
The  British  chemists  were  not  blind  to  this,  but  they 
could  do  nothing,  first  because  the  English  politician 
was  wedded  to  free  trade,  second,  because  the  English 
farmer  would  not  use  oil  cake  for  his  stock.  France 
was  in  a  similar  situation.  Marseilles  produced  15,- 
500,000  gallons  of  oil  from  peanuts  grown  largely  in 
the  French  African  colonies — but  shipped  the  oil-cake 
on  to  Hamburg.  Meanwhile  the  Germans,  in  pursuit 
of  their  policy  of  attaining  economic  independence, 
were  striving  to  develop  their  own  tropical  territory. 
The  subjects  of  King  George  who  because  they  had  the 
misfortune  to  liye  in  India  were  excluded  from  the 
British  South  African  dominions  or  mistreated  when 
they  did  come,  were  invited  to  come  to  German  East 
Africa  and  set  to  raising  peanuts  in  rivalry  to  French 
Senegal  and  British  Coromandel.  Before  the  war  Ger- 
many got  half  of  the  Egyptian  cottonseed  and  half  of 
the  Philippine  copra.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
German  warships  tried  to  check  Dewey  at  Manila  in 
1898  and  German  troops  tried  to  conquer  Egypt  in  1915. 
But  the  tide  of  war  set  the  other  way  and  the  German 
plantations  of  palmnuts  and  peanuts  in  Africa  have 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  207 

come  into  British  possession  and  now  the  British  Gov- 
ernment is  starting  an  educational  campaign  to  teach 
their  farmers  to  feed  oil  cake  like  the  Germans  and 
their  people  to  eat  peanuts  like  the  Americans. 

The  Germans  shut  off  from  the  tropical  fats  supply 
were  hard  up  for  food  and  for  soap,  for  lubricants  and 
for  munitions.  Every  person  was  given  a  fat  card  that 
reduced  his  weekly  allowance  to  the  minimum.  Millers 
were  required  to  remove  the  germs  from  their  cereals 
and  deliver  them  to  the  war  department.  Children 
were  set  to  gathering  horse-chestnuts,  elderberries, 
linden-balls,  grape  seeds,  cherry  stones  and  sunflower 
heads,  for  these  contain  from  six  to  twenty  per  cent,  of 
oil.  Even  the  blue-bottle  fly — hitherto  an  idle  creature 
for  whom  Beelzebub  found  mischief — ^was  conscripted 
into  the  national  service  and  set  to  laying  eggs  by  the 
billion  on  fish  refuse.  Within  a  few  days  there  is  a 
crop  of  larvaB  which,  to  quote  the  ^*Chemische  Zentral- 
blatt,''  yields  forty-five  grams  per  kilogram  of  a  yellow 
oil.  This  product,  we  should  hope,  is  used  for  axle- 
grease  and  nitroglycerin,  although  properly  purified  it 
would  be  as  nutritious  as  any  other — to  one  who  has  no 
imagination.  Driven  to  such  straits  Germany  would 
have  given  a  good  deal  for  one  of  those  tropical  islands 
that  we  are  so  careless  about. 

It  might  have  been  supposed  that  since  the  United 
States  possessed  the  best  land  in  the  world  for  the  pro- 
duction of  cottonseed,  coconuts,  peanuts  and  com  that 
it  would  have  led  all  other  countries  in  the  utilization 
of  vegetable  oils  for  food.  That  this  country  has  not 
so  used  its  advantage  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  new 
products  have  not  merely  had  to  overcome  popular 


208  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

conservatism,  ignorance  and  prejudice — hard  things  to 
fight  in  any  case — but  have  been  deliberately  checked  l 
and  hampered  by  the  state  and  national  governments  in 
defense  of  vested  interests.     The  farmer  vote  is  a 
power  that  no  politician  likes  to  defy  and  the  dairy 
business  in  every  state  was  thoroughly  organized.    In 
New  York  the  oleomargarin  industry  that  in  1879  was; 
turning  out  products  valued  at  more  than  $5,000,000  a 
year  was  completely  crushed  out  by  state  legislation.^ 
The  output  of  the  United  States,  which  in  1902  had 
risen  to  126,000,000  pounds,  was  cut  down  to  43,000,000 
pounds  in  1909  by  federal  legislation.    According  to 
the  disingenuous  custom  of  American  lawmakers  the 
Act  of  1902  was  passed  through  Congress  as  a  *^ revenue* 
measure,''  although  it  meant  a  loss  to  the  Government 
of  more  than  three  million  dollars  a  year  over  what 
might  be  produced  by  a  straight  two  cents  a  pound  tax. 
A  wholesale  dealer  in  oleomargarin  was  made  to  pay  aj 
higher  license  than  a  wholesale  liquor  dealer.     The 
federal  law  put  a  tax  of  ten  cents  a  pound  on  yellow 
oleomargarin  and  a  quarter  of  a  cent  a  pound  on  thej 
uncolored.    But  people — doubtless  from  pure  preju- 
dice— ^prefer  a  yellow  spread  for  their  bread,  so  the' 
economical  housewife  has  to  work  over  her  oleomar-| 
garin  with  the  annatto  which  is  given  to  her  when  shej 
buys  a  package  or,  if  the  law  prohibits  this,  which  shej 
is  permitted  to  steal  from  an  open  box  on  the  grocer 'si 
counter.    A  plausible  pretext  for  such  legislation  is  J 
afforded  by  the  fact  that  the  butter  substitutes  are  soi 
much  like  butter  that  they  cannot  be  easily  distin-^ 
guished  from  it  unless  the  use  of  annatto  is  permittedi 

1  United  States  Abstract  of  Census  of  Manufactures,  1914,  p.  34. 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  209 

to  butter  and  prohibited  to  its  competitors.  Fradulent 
sales  of  substitutes  of  any  kind  ought  to  be  prevented, 
but  the  recent  pure  food  legislation  in  America  has 
shown  that  it  is  possible  to  secure  truthful  labeling 
without  resorting  to  such  drastic  measures.  In  Europe 
the  laws  against  substitution  were  very  strict,  but  not 
devised  to  restrict  the  industry.  Consequently  the 
margarin  output  of  Germany  doubled  in  the  five  years 
preceding  the  war  and  the  output  of  England  tripled. 
In  Denmark  the  consumption  of  margarin  rose  from 
8.8  pounds  per  capita  in  1890  to  32.6  pounds  in  1912. 
Yet  the  butter  business,  Denmark's  pride,  was  not  in- 
jured, and  Germany  and  England  imported  more  butter 
than  ever  before.  Now  that  the  price  of  butter  in 
America  has  gone  over  the  seventy-five  cent  mark  Con- 
gress may  conclude  that  it  no  longer  needs  to  be  pro- 
tected against  competition. 

The  ** compound  lards''  or  **lard  compounds,'*  con- 
sisting usually  of  cottonseed  oil  and  oleo-stearin,  al- 
though the  latter  may  now  be  replaced  by  hardened  oil, 
met  with  the  same  popular  prejudice  and  attempted 
legislative  interference,  but  succeeded  more  easily  in 
coming  into  common  use  under  such  names  as  **Cotto- 
suet,"  ^^Kream  Krisp,"  ^^Kuxit,"  **Korno,"  *'Cotto- 
lene"  and  **Crisco." 

Oleomargarin,  now  generally  abbreviated  to  mar- 
garin, originated,  like  many  other  inventions,  in  mili- 
tary necessity.  The  French  Government  in  1869  of- 
fered a  prize  for  a  butter  substitute  for  the  army  that 
should  be  cheaper  and  better  than  butter  in  that  it  did 
not  spoil  so  easily.  The  prize  was  won  by  a  French 
chemist;,  Mege-Mouries,  who  found  that  by  chilling  beef 


210  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

fat  the  solid  stearin  could  be  separated  from  an  oil 
(oleo)  which  was  the  substantially  same  as  that  in  milk 
and  hence  in  butter.    Neutral  lard  acts  the  same. 

This  discovery  of  how  to  separate  the  hard  and  soft 
fats  was  followed  by  improved  methods  for  purifying 
them  and  later  by  the  process  for  converting  the  soft 
into  the  hard  fats  by  hydrogenation.  The  net  result 
was  to  put  into  the  hands  of  the  chemist  the  ability  to 
draw  his  materials  at  will  from  any  land  and  from  the 
vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms  and  to  combine  them  as 
he  will  to  make  new  fat  foods  for  every  use ;  hard  for 
summer,  soft  for  winter;  solid  for  the  northerners  and 
liquid  for  the  southerners ;  white,  yellow  or  any  other 
color,  and  flavored  to  suit  the  taste.  The  Hindu  can 
eat  no  fat  from  the  sacred  cow ;  the  Mohammedan  and 
the  Jew  can  eat  no  fat  from  the  abhorred  pig ;  the  vege- 
tarian will  touch  neither;  other  people  will  take  both. 
No  matter,  all  can  be  accommodated. 

All  the  fats  and  oils,  though  they  consist  of  scores  of 
different  compounds,  have  practically  the  same  food 
value  when  freed  from  the  extraneous  matter  that  gives 
them  their  characteristic  flavors.  They  are  all  prac- 
tically tasteless  and  colorless.  The  various  vegetable 
and  animal  oils  and  fats  have  about  the  same  digesti- 
bility, 98  per  cent.,^  and  are  all  ordinarily  completely 
utilized  in  the  body,  supplying  it  with  two  and  a  quarter 
times  as  much  energy  as  any  other  food. 

It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  there  is  no  differ- 
ence in  the  products.  The  margarin  men  accuse  butter 
of  harboring  tuberculosis  germs  from  which  their  prod- 
uct, because  it  has  been  heated  or  is  made  from  vege- 

1  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  Bulletin  No.  505. 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  211 

table  fats,  is  free.  The  butter  men  retort  tbat  mar- 
garin  is  lacking  in  vitamines,  those  mysterious  sub- 
stances which  in  minute  amounts  are  necessary  for  life 
and  especially  for  growth.  Both  the  claim  and  the 
objection  lose  a  large  part  of  their  force  where  the 
margarin,  as  is  customarily  the  case,  is  mixed  with 
butter  or  churned  up  with  milk  to  give  it  the  familiar 
flavor.  But  the  difficulty  can  be  easily  overcome.  The 
milk  used  for  either  butter  or  margarin  should  be  free 
or  freed  from  disease  germs.  If  margarin  is  alto- 
gether substituted  for  butter,  the  necessary  vitamines 
may  be  sufficiently  provided  by  milk,  eggs  and  greens. 
Owing  to  these  new  processes  all  the  fatty  substances 
of  all  lands  have  been  brought  into  competition  with 
each  other.  In  such  a  contest  the  vegetable  is  likely  to 
beat  the  animal  and  the  southern  to  win  over  the  north- 
em  zones.  In  Europe  before  the  war  the  proportion 
of  the  various  ingredients  used  to  make  butter  substi- 
tutes was  as  follows : 

AVERAGE  COMPOSrriON  OP  EUROPEAN  MARGARIN 

Per  Cent. 

Animal  hard  fats -  25 

Vegetable  hard  fats  35 

Copra 29 

Palm-kernel    6 

Vegetable  soft  fats 26 

Cottonseed    13 

Peanut     6 

Sesame 6 

Soya-bean    1 

Water,  milk,  salt :  14 

100 


212  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

This  is  not  the  composition  of  any  particular  brand 
but  the  average  of  them  all.  The  nse  of  a  certain 
amount  of  the  oil  of  the  sesame  seed  is  required  by  the 
laws  of  Germany  and  Denmark  because  it  can  be  easily 
detected  by  a  chemical  color  test  and  so  serves  to  pre- 
vent the  margarin  containing  it  from  being  sold  as 
butter.  **Open  sesame!''  is  the  password  to  these 
markets.  Remembering  that  margarin  originally  was 
made  up  entirely  of  animal  fats,  soft  and  hard,  we  can 
see  from  the  above  figures  how  rapidly  they  are  being 
displaced  by  the  vegetable  fats.  The  cottonseed  and 
peanut  oils  have  replaced  the  original  oleo  oil  and  the 
tropical  oils  from  the  coconut  (copra)  and  African 
palm  are  crowding  out  the  animal  hard  fats.  Since 
now  we  can  harden  at  will  any  of  the  vegetable  oils  it 
is  possible  to  get  along  altogether  without  animal  fats. 
Such  vegetable  margarins  were  originally  prepared  for 
sale  in  India,  but  proved  unexpectedly  popular  in  Eu- 
rope, and  are  now  being  introduced  into  America. 
They  are  sold  under  various  trade  names  suggesting 
their  origin,  such  as  **palniira,''  ^^palmona,''  *^milko- 
nut,''  **cocose,"  **  coconut  oleomargarin''  and  **nucoa 
nut  margarin.''  The  last  named  is  stated  to  be  made 
of  coconut  oil  (for  the  hard  fat)  and  peanut  oil  (for  the 
soft  fat),  churned  up  with  a  culture  of  pasteurized  milk 
(to  impart  the  butter  flavor).  The  law  requires  such  a 
product  to  be  branded  *  *  oleomargarine ' '  although  it  is 
not.  Such  cases  of  compulsory  mislabeling  are  not 
rare.    You  remember  the  '*Pigs  is  Pigs"  story. 

Peanut  butter  has  won  its  way  into  the  American 
menu  without  any  camouflage  whatever,  and  as  a  salad 
oil  it  is  almost  equally  frank  about  its  lowly  origin. 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  213 

This  nut,  which  grows  on  a  vine  instead  of  a  tree,  and 
is  dug  from  the  ground  like  potatoes  instead  of  being 
picked  with  a  pole,  goes  by  various  names  according  to 
locality,  peanuts,  ground-nuts,  monkey-nuts,  arachides 
and  goobers.  As  it  takes  the  place  of  cotton  oil  in 
some  of  its  products  so  it  takes  its  place  in  the  fields 
and  oilmills  of  Texas  left  vacant  by  the  boUweevil. 
The  once  despised  peanut  added  some  $56,000,000  to 
the  wealth  of  the  South  in  1916.  The  peanut  is  rich  in 
the  richest  of  foods,  some  50  per  cent,  of  oil  and  30  per 
cent,  of  protein.  The  latter  can  be  worked  up  into  meat 
substitutes  that  will  make  the  vegetarian  cease  to  envy 
his  omnivorous  neighbor.  Thanks  largely  to  the  chem- 
ist who  has  opened  these  new  fields  of  usefulness,  the 
peanut-raiser  got  $1.25  a  bushel  in  1917  instead  of  the 
30  cents  that  he  got  four  years  before. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  enumerate  all  the  available 
sources  of  vegetable  oils,  for  all  seeds  and  nuts  coin  tain 
more  or  less  fatty  matter  and  as  we  become  more 
economical  we  shall  utilize  of  what  we  now  throw  away. 
The  germ  of  the  corn  kernel,  once  discarded  in  the 
manufacture  of  starch,  now  yields  a  popular  table  oil. 
From  tomato  seeds,  one  of  the  waste  products  of  the 
canning  factory,  can  be  extracted  22  per  cent,  of  an 
edible  oil.  Oats  contain  7  per  cent,  of  oil.  From  rape 
seed  the  Japanese  get  20,000  tons  of  oil  a  year.  To 
the  sources  previously  mentioned  may  be  added  pump- 
kin seeds,  poppy  seeds,  raspberry  seeds,  tobacco  seeds, 
cockleburs,  hazelnuts,  walnuts,  beechnuts  and  acoras. 

The  oil-bearing  seeds  of  the  tropics  are  innumerable 
and  will  become  increasingly  essential  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  northern  lands.    It  was  the  realization  of  this 


214  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

that  broiigM  on  the  struggle  of  the  great  powers  for 
the  possession  of  tropical  territory  which,  for  years 
before,  they  did  not  think  worth  while  raising  a  flag 
over.  No  country  in  the  future  can  consider  itself  safe 
unless  it  has  secure  access  to  such  sources.  We  had  a 
sharp  lesson  in  this  during  the  war.  Palm  oil,  it  seems, 
is  necessary  for  the  manufacture  of  tinplate,  an  indus- 
try that  was  built  up  in  the  United  States  by  the  Mc- 
Kinley  tariff.  The  British  possessions  in  West  Africa, 
were  the  chief  source  of  palm  oil  and  the  Gei*mans  hadi 
the  handling  of  it.  During  the  war  the  British  G-overn* 
ment  assumed  control  of  the  palm  oil  products  of  the 
British  and  German  colonies  ar^d  prohibited  their  ex- 
port to  other  countries  than  England.  Americans  pro- 
tested and  beseeched.  but  in  vain.  The  British  held, 
quite  correctly,  that  they  needed  all  the  oil  they  could' 
get  for  food  and  lubrication  and  nitroglycerin.  But 
the  British  also  needed  canned  meat  from  America  for 
their  soldiers  and  when  it  was  at  length  brought  to  their 
attention  that  the  packers  could  not  ship  meat  unless 
they  had  cans  and  that  cans  could  not  be  made  without 
tin  and  that  tin  could  not  be  made  without  palm  oil  the 
British  Government  consented  to  let  us  buy  a  little  of 
their  palm  oil.  The  lesson  is  that  of  Voltaire's  story, 
^^Candide,"  '*Let  us  cultivate  our  own  garden" — and 
plant  a  few  palm  trees  in  it — ^^also  rubber  trees,  but  that 
is  another  story. 

The  international  struggle  for  oil  led  to  the  partition 
of  the  Pacific  as  the  struggle  for  rubber  led  to  the  par- 
tition of  Africa.  Theodor  Weber,  as  Stevenson  says, 
** harried  the  Samoans"  to  get  copra  much  as  King 
Leopold   of   Belgium   harried   the    Congoese   to   gel 


SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  215 

caoutchonc.  It  was  Weber  who  first  fully  realized  that 
the  South  Sea  islands,  formerly  given  over  to  cannibals, 
pirates  and  missionaries,  might  be  made  immensely 
valuable  through  the  cultivation  of  the  coconut  palms. 
When  the  ripe  coconut  is  split  open  and  exposed  to  the 
sun  the  meat  dries  up  and  shrivels  and  in  this  form, 
called  *' copra,"  it  can  be  cut  out  and  shipped  to  the 
factory  where  the  oil  is  extracted  and  refined.  Weber 
while  German  Consul  in  Samoa  was  also  manager  of 
what  was  locally  known  as  '*the  long-handled  concern'' 
{Deutsche  Eandels  und  Plantagen  Gesellschaft  der 
Sudsee  Inseln  zu  Bamhurfj),  a  pioneer  commercial  and 
semi-official  corporation  that  played  a  part  in  the  Pa- 
cific somewhat  like  the  British  Hudson  Bay  Company 
in  Canada  or  East  India  Company  in  Hindustan. 
Through  the  agency  of  this  corporation  on  the  start 
Germany  acquired  a  virtual  monopoly  of  the  transpor- 
tation and  refining  of  coconut  oil  and  would  have  be- 
come the  dominant  power  in  the  Pacific  if  she  had  not 
been  checked  by  force  of  arms.  In  Apia  Bay  in  1889 
and  again  in  Manila  Bay  in  1898  an  American  fleet 
faced  a  German  fleet  ready  for  action  while  a  British 
warship  lay  between.  So  we  rescued  the  Philippines 
and  Samoa  from  German  rule  and  in  1914  German 
power  was  eliminated  from  the  Pacific.  During  the  ten 
years  before  the  war,  the  production  of  copra  in  the 
German  islands  more  than  doubled  and  this  was  only 
the  beginning  of  the  business.  Now  these  islands  have 
been  divided  up  among  Australia,  New  Zealand  and 
Japan,  and  these  countries  are  planning  to  take  care  of 
the  copra. 
But  although  we  get  no  extension  of  territory  from 


216  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

the  war  we  still  have  the  Philippines  and  some  of  the 
Samoan  Islands,  and  these  are  capable  of  great  devel- 
opment. From  her  share  of  the  Samoan  Islands  Ger- 
many got  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  copra  and  we 
might  get  more  from  ours.  The  Philippines  now  lead 
the  world  in  the  production  of  copra,  but  Java  is  a  close 
second  and  Ceylon  not  far  behind.  If  we  do  not  look 
out  we  will  be  beaten  both  by  the  Dutch  and  the  British, 
for  they  are  undertaking  the  cultivation  of  the  coconut 
on  a  larger  scale  and  in  a  more  systematic  way.  Ac- 
cording to  an  official  bulletin  of  the  Philippine  Govern- 
ment a  coconut  plantation  should  bring  in  *^  dividends 
ranging  from  10  to  75  per  cent,  from  the  tenth  to  the 
hundredth  year."  And  this  being  printed  in  1913  fig- 
ured the  price  of  copra  at  3%  cents,  whereas  it  brought 
41/2  cents  in  1918,  so  the  prospect  is  still  more  encourag- 
ing. The  copra  is  half  fat  and  can  be  cheaply  shipped 
to  America,  where  it  can  be  crushed  in  the  southern  oil- 
mills  when  they  are  not  busy  on  cottonseed  or  peanuts. 
But  even  this  cost  of  transportation  can  be  reduced  by 
extracting  the  oil  in  the  islands  and  shipping  it  in  bulk 
like  petroleum  in  tank  steamers. 

In  the  year  ending  June,  1918,  the  United  States  im- 
ported from  the  Philippines  155,000,000  pounds  of  coco- 
nut oil  worth  $18,000,000  and  220,000,000  pounds  of 
copra  worth  $10,000,000.  But  this  was  about  half  our 
total  importations;  the  rest  of  it  we  had  to  get  from 
foreign  countries.  Panama  palms  may  give  us  a  little 
relief  from  this  dependence  on  foreign  sources.  In 
1917  we  imported  19,000,000  whole  coconuts  from  Pan- 
ama valued  at  $700,000. 

A  new  form  of  fat  that  has  rapidly  come  into  our 


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SOLIDIFIED  SUNSHINE  217 

market  is  the  oil  of  the  soya  or  soy  bean.  In  1918  we 
imported  over  300,000,000  pounds  of  soy-bean  oil, 
mostly  from  Manchuria.  The  oil  is  used  in  manufac- 
ture of  substitutes  for  butter,  lard,  cheese,  milk  and 
cream,  as  well  as  for  soap  and  paint.  The  soy-bean  can 
be  raised  in  the  United  States  wherever  corn  can  be 
grown  and  provides  provender  for  man  and  beast. 
The  soy  meal  left  after  the  extraction  of  the  oil  makes 
a  good  cattle  food  and  the  fermented  juice  affords  the 
shoya  sauce  made  familiar  to  us  through  the  popularity 
of  the  chop-suey  restaurants. 

As  meat  and  dairy  products  become  scarcer  and 
dearer  we  shall  become  increasingly  dependent  upon 
the  vegetable  fats.  We  should  therefore  devise  means 
of  saving  what  we  now  throw  away,  raise  as  much  as  we 
can  under  our  own  flag,  keep  open  avenues  for  our 
foreign  supply  and  encourage  our  cooks  to  make  use 
of  the  new  products  invented  by  our  chemists. 


CHAPTEE  XII 

FIGHTING   WITH   FUMES 

The  Germans  opened  the  war  nsing  projectiles  seven- 
teen inches  in  diameter.  They  closed  it  using  projec- 
tiles one  one-.hundred  millionth  of  an  inch  in  diameter. 
And  the  latter  were  more  effective  than  the  former. 
As  the  dimensions  were  reduced  from  molar  to  mole- 
cular the  battle  became  more  intense.  For  when  the 
Big  Bertha  had  shot  its  bolt,  that  was  the  end  of  it. 
Whomever  it  hit  was  hurt,  but  after  that  the  steel  frag- 
ments of  the  shell  lay  on  the  ground  harmless  and 
inert.  The  men  in  the  dugouts  could  hear  the  shells 
whistle  overhead  without  alarm.  But  the  poison  gas 
could  penetrate  where  the  rifle  ball  could  not.  The 
malignant  molecules  seemed  to  search  out  their  victims. 
They  crept  through  the  crevices  of  the  subterranean 
shelters.  They  hunted  for  the  pinholes  in  the  face 
masks.  They  lay  in  wait  for  days  in  the  trenches  for 
the  soldiers'  return  as  a  cat  watches  at  the  hole  of  a 
mouse.  The  cannon  ball  could  be  seen  and  heard. 
The  poison  gas  was  invisible  and  inaudible,  and  some- 
times even  the  chemical  sense  which  nature  has  given 
man  for  his  protection,  the  sense  of  smell,  failed  to  give 
warning  of  the  approach  of  the  foe. 

The  smaller  the  matter  that  man  can  deal  with  the 
more  he  can  get  out  of  it.  So  long  as  man  was  depend- 
ent for  power  upon  wind  and  water  his  working  capao- 

218 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  219 

ity  was  very  limited.  But  as  soon  as  he  passed  over 
the  border  line  from  physics  into  chemistry  and  learned 
how  to  use  the  molecule,  his  efficiency  in  work  and  war- 
fare was  multiplied  manifold.  The  molecular  bom- 
bardment of  the  piston  by  steam  or  the  gases  of  com- 
bustion runs  his  engines  and  propels  his  cars.  The 
first  man  who  wanted  to  kill  another  from  a  safe  dis- 
tance threw  the  stone  by  his  arm's  strength.  David 
added  to  his  arm  the  centrifugal  force  of  a  sling  when 
he  slew  Goliath.  The  Romans  improved  on  this  by 
concentrating  in  a  catapult  the  strength  of  a  score  of 
slaves  and  casting  stone  cannon  balls  to  the  top  of  the 
city  wall.  But  finally  man  got  closer  to  nature's  se- 
cret and  discovered  that  by  loosing  a  swarm  of  gase- 
ous molecules  he  could  throw  his  projectile  seventy- 
five  miles  and  then  by  the  same  force  burst  it  into 
flying  fragments.  There  is  no  smaller  projectile  than 
the  atom  unless  our  belligerent  chemists  can  find  a  way 
of  using  the  electron  stream  of  the  cathode  ray.  But 
this  so  far  has  figured  only  in  the  pages  of  our  scien- 
tific romancers  and  has  not  yet  appeared  on  the  battle- 
field. If,  however,  man  could  tap  the  reservoir  of 
sub-atomic  energy  he  need  do  no  more  work  and  would 
make  no  more  war,  for  unlimited  powers  of  construc- 
tion and  destruction  would  be  at  his  command.  The 
forces  of  the  infinitesimal  are  infinite. 

The  reason  why  a  gas  is  so  active  is  because  it  is  so 
egoistic.  Psychologically  interpreted,  a  gas  consists 
of  particles  having  the  utmost  aversion  to  one  another. 
Each  tries  to  get  as  far  away  from  every  other  as  it  can. 
There  is  no  cohesive  force ;  no  attractive  impulse ;  noth- 
ing to  draw  them  together  except  the  all  too  feeble 


220  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

power  of  gravitation.  The  hotter  they  get  the  more 
they  try  to  disperse  and  so  the  gas  expands.  The  gas 
represents  the  extreme  of  individualism  as  steel  repre- 
sents the  extreme  of  collectivism.  The  combination  of 
the  two  works  wonders.  A  hot  gas  in  a  steel  cylinder 
is  the  most  powerful  agency  known  to  man,  and  by 
means  of  it  he  accomplishes  his  greatest  achievements 
in  peace  or  war  time. 

The  projectile  is  thrown  from  the  gun  by  the  expan- 
sive force  of  the  gases  released  from  the  powder  and 
when  it  reaches  its  destination  it  is  blown  to  pieces  by 
the  same  force.  This  is  the  end  of  it  if  it  is  a  shell  of 
the  old-fashdoned  sort,  for  the  gases  of  combustion 
mingle  harmlessly  with  the  air  of  which  they  are  nor- 
mal constituents.  But  if  it  is  a  poison  gas  shell  each 
molecule  as  it  is  released  goes  off  straight  into  the  air 
with  a  speed  twice  that  of  the  cannon  ball  and  carries 
death  with  it.  A  man  may  be  hit  by  a  heavy  piece  of 
lead  or  iron  and  still  survive,  but  an  unweighable 
amount  of  lethal  gas  may  be  fatal  to  him. 

Most  of  the  novelties  of  the  war  were  merely  exten- 
sions of  what  was  already  known.  To  increase  the  cali- 
ber of  a  cannon  from  38  to  42  centimeters  or  its  range 
from  30  to  75  miles  does  indeed  make  necessary  a  de- 
cided change  in  tactics,  but  it  is  not  comparable  to  the 
revolution  effected  by  the  introduction  of  new  weapons 
of  unprecedented  power  such  as  airplanes,  submarines, 
tanks,  high  explosives  or  poison  gas.  If  any  army  had 
been  as  well  equipped  with  these  in  the  beginning  as  all 
armies  were  at  the  end  it  might  easily  have  won  the 
war.  That  is  to  say,  if  the  general  staff  of  any  of  the 
powers  had  had  the  foresight  and  confidence  to  develop 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  221 

and  practise  these  modes  of  warfare  on  a  large  scale  in 
advance  it  would  have  been  irresistible  against  an 
enemy  unprepared  to  meet  them.  But  no  military 
genius  appeared  on  either  side  with  sufficient  courage 
and  imagination  to  work  out  such  schemes  in  secret 
before  trying  them  out  on  a  small  scale  m  the  open. 
Consequently  the  enemy  had  fair  warning  and  ample 
time  to  learn  how  to  meet  them  and  methods  of  defense 
developed  concurrently  with  methods  of  attack.  For 
instance,  consider  the  motor  fortresses  to  which  Luden- 
dorff  ascribes  his  defeat.  The  British  first  sent  out  a 
few  clumsy  tanks  against  the  German  lines.  Then  they 
set  about  making  a  lot  of  stronger  and  livelier  ones, 
but  by  the  time  these  were  ready  the  Germans  had  field 
guns  to  smash  them  and  chain  fences  with  concrete 
posts  to  stop  them.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Germans 
had  followed  up  their  advantage  when  they  first  set  the 
cloud  of  chlorine  floating  over  the  battlefield  of  Ypres 
they  might  have  won  the  war  in  the  spring  of  1915  in- 
stead of  losing  it  in  the  fall  of  1918.  For  the  British 
were  unprepared  and  unprotected  against  the  silent 
death  that  swept  down  upon  them  on  the  22nd  of  April, 
1915.  What  happened  then  is  best  told  by  Sir  Arthur 
Conan  Doyle  in  his  ** History  of  the  Great  War.'' 

From  the  base  of  the  German  trenches  over  a  considerable 
length  there  appeared  jets  of  whitish  vapor,  which  gathered 
and  swirled  until  they  settled  into  a  definite  low  cloud-bank, 
greenish-brown  below  and  yellow  above,  where  it  reflected  the 
rays  of  the  sinking  sun.  This  ominous  bank  of  vapor,  im- 
pelled by  a  northern  breeze,  drifted  swiftly  across  the  space 
which  separated  the  two  lines.  The  French  troops,  staring 
over  the  top  of  their  parapet  at  this  curious  screen  which  en- 


222  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

sured  them  a  temporary  relief  from  fire,  were  observed  sud- 
denly to  throw  up  their  hands,  to  clutch  at  their  throats,  and 
to  fall  to  the  ground  in  the  agonies  of  asphyxiation.  Many 
lay  where  they  had  fallen,  while  their  comrades,  absolutely 
helpless  against  this  diabolical  agency,  rushed  madly  out  of 
the  mephitic  mist  and  made  for  the  rear,  over-running  the 
lines  of  trenches  behind  them.  Many  of  them  never  halted 
until  they  had  reached  Ypres,  while  others  rushed  westwards 
and  put  the  canal  between  themselves  and  the  enemy.  The 
Germans,  meanwhile,  advanced,  and  took  possession  of  the 
successive  lines  of  trenches,  tenanted  only  by  the  dead  gar- 
risons, whose  blackened  faces,  contorted  figures,  and  lips 
fringed  with  the  blood  and  foam  from  their  bursting  lungs, 
showed  the  agonies  in  which  they  had  died.  Some  thousands 
of  stupefied  prisoners,  eight  batteries  of  French  field-guns, 
and  four  British  4.7 's,  which  had  been  placed  in  a  wood  be- 
hind the  French  position,  were  the  trophies  won  by  this  dis- 
graceful victory. 

Under  the  shattering  blow  which  they  had  received,  a  blow 
particularly  demoralizing  to  African  troops,  with  their  fears 
of  magic  and  the  unknown,  it  was  impossible  to  rally  them 
effectually  until  the  next  day.  It  is  to  be  remembered  in  ex- 
planation of  this  disorganization  that  it  was  the  first  experi- 
ence of  these  poison  tactics,  and  that  the  troops  engaged  re- 
ceived the  gas  in  a  very  much  more  severe  form  than  our  own 
men  on  the  right  of  Langemarck.  For  a  time  there  was  a 
gap  five  miles  broad  in  the  front  of  the  position  of  the  Allies,, 
and  there  were  many  hours  during  which  there  was  no  sub- 
stantial force  between  the  Germans  and  Ypres.  They  wasted 
their  time,  however,  in  consolidating  their  ground,  and  the 
chance  of  a  great  coup  passed  forever.  They  had  sold  their 
souls  as  soldiers,  but  the  Devil's  price  was  a  poor  one.  Had" 
they  had  a  corps  of  cavalry  ready,  and  pushed  them  through 
the  gap,  it  would  have  been  the  most  dangerous  moment  of 
the  war. 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  223 

A  deserter  had  come  over  from  the  German  side  a 
week  before  and  told  them  that  cylinders  of  poison  gas 
had  been  laid  in  the  front  trenches,  but  no  one  believed 
him  or  paid  any  attention  to  his  tale.  War  was  then,  in 
the  Englishman's  opinion,  a  gentleman's  game,  the 
royal  sport,  and  poison  was  prohibited  by  the  Hague 
rules.  But  the  Germans  were  not  playing  the  game  ac- 
cording to  the  rules,  so  the  British  soldiers  were  stran- 
gled in  their  own  trenches  and  fell  easy  victims  to  the 
advancing  foe.  Within  half  an  hour  after  the  gas  was 
turned  on  80  per  cent,  of  the  opposing  troops  were 
knocked  out.  The  Canadians,  with  wet  handkerchiefs 
over  their  faces,  closed  in  to  stop  the  gap,  but  if  the 
Germans  had  been  prepared  for  such  success  they  could 
have  cleared  the  way  to  the  coast.  But  after  such  trials 
the  Germans  stopped  the  use  of  free  chlorine  and  began 
the  preparation  of  more  poisonous  gases.  In  some  way 
that  may  not  be  revealed  till  the  secret  history  of  the 
war  is  published,  the  British  Intelligence  Department 
obtained  a  copy  of  the  lecture  notes  of  the  instructions 
to  the  German  staff  giving  details  of  the  new  system 
of  gas  warfare  to  be  started  in  December.  Among  the 
compounds  named  was  phosgene,  a  gas  so  lethal  that 
one  part  in  ten  thousand  of  air  may  be  fatal.  The 
antidote  for  it  is  hexamethylene  tetramine.  This  is  not 
something  the  soldier — or  anybody  else — ^is  accustomed 
to  carry  around  with  him,  but  the  British  having  had  a 
chance  to  cram  up  in  advance  on  the  stolen  lecture 
notes  were  ready  with  gas  helmets  soaked  in  the  re- 
agent with  the  long  name. 

The  Germans  rejoiced  when  gas  bombs  took  the 
place  of  bayonets  because  this  was  a  field  in  which  in- 


224  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

telligence  counted  for  more  than  brute  force  and  in 
which  therefore  they  expected  to  be  supreme.  As  usual 
they  were  right  in  their  major  premise  but  wrong  in 
their  conclusion,  owing  to  the  egoism  of  their  implicit 
minor  premise.  It  does  indeed  give  the  advantage  to 
skill  and  science,  but  the  Germans  were  beaten  at  their 
own  game,  for  by  the  end  of  the  war  the  United  States 
was  able  to  turn  out  toxic  gases  at  a  rate  of  200  tons  a 
day,  while  the  output  of  Germany  or  England  was  only 
about  30  tons.  A  gas  plant  was  started  at  Edgewood, 
Maryland,  in  November,  1917.  By  March  it  was  filling 
shell  and  before  the  war  put  a  stop  to  its  activities  in 
the  fall  it  was  producing  1,300,000  pounds  of  chlorin, 
1,000,000  pounds  of  chlorpicrin,  1,300,000  pounds  of 
phosgene  and  700,000  pounds  of  mustard  gas  a  month. 
Chlorine,  the  first  gas  used,  is  unpleasantly  familiar 
to  every  one  who  has  entered  a  chemical  laboratory  or 
who  has  smelled  the  breath  of  bleaching  powder.  It  is 
a  greenish-yellow  gas  made  from  common  salt.  The 
Germans  employed  it  at  Ypres  by  laying  cylinders  oft 
the  liquefied  gas  in  the  trenches,  about  a  yard  apart, 
and  running  a  lead  discharge  pipe  over  the  parapet. 
When  the  stop  cocks  are  turned  the  gas  streams  out 
and  since  it  is  two  and  a  half  times  as  heavy  as  air  it 
rolls  over  the  ground  like  a  noisome  mist.  It  works 
best  when  the  ground  slopes  gently  down  toward  the 
enemy  and  when  the  wind  blows  in  that  direction  at  a 
rate  between  four  and  twelve  miles  an  hour.  But  the- 
wind,  being  strictly  neutral,  may  change  its  directior 
without  warning  and  then  the  gases  turn  back  in  theii 
flight  and  attack  their  own  side,  something  that  rifl( 
bullets  have  never  been  known  to  do. 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  225 

Because  free  chlorine  would  not  stay  put  and  was  de- 
pendent on  the  favor  of  the  wind  for  its  effect,  it  was 
later  employed,  not  as  an  elemental  gas,  but  in  some 
volatile  liquid  that  could  be  fired  in  a  shell  and  so  re- 
leased at  any  particular  point  far  back  of  the  front 
trenches. 

The  most  commonly  used  of  these  compounds  was 
phosgene,  which,  as  the  reader  can  see  by  inspection  of 
its  formula,  COClg,  consists  of  chlorine  (CI)  combined 
with  carbon  monoxide  (CO),  the  cause  of  deaths  from 
illuminating  gas.  These  two  poisonous  gases,  chlorine 
and  carbon  monoxide,  when  mixed  together,  will  not 
readily  unite,  but  if  a  ray  of  sunlight  falls  upon  the 
mixture  they  combine  at  once.  For  this  reason  John 
Davy,  who  discovered  the  compound  over  a  hundred 
years  ago,  named  it  phosgene,  that  is,  **  produced  by 
light."  The  same  roots  recur  in  hydrogen,  so  named 
because  it  is  ** produced  from  water,''  and  phosphorus, 
because  it  is  a  ** light-bearer." 

In  its  modem  manufacture  the  catalyzer  or  instiga- 
tor of  the  combination  is  not  sunlight  but  porous  car- 
bon. This  is  packed  in  iron  boxes  eight  feet  long, 
through  which  the  mixture  of  the  two  gases  was  forced. 
Carbon  monoxide  may  be  made  by  burning  coke  with 
a  supply  of  air  insufficient  for  complete  combustion, 
but  in  order  to  get  the  pure  gas  necessary  for  the 
phosgene  common  air  was  not  used,  but  instead  pure 
oxygen  extracted  from  it  by  a  liquid  air  plant. 

Phosgene  is  a  gas  that  may  be  condensed  easily  to  a 
liquid  by  cooling  it  down  to  46  degrees  Fahrenheit. 
A  mixture  of  three-quarters  chlorine  with  one-quarter 
phosgene  has  been  found  most  effective.    By  itself 


226  CREATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

phosgene  has  an  inoffensive  odor  somewhat  like  green 
com  and  so  may  fail  to  arouse  apprehension  until  a 
toxic  concentration  is  reached.  But  even  small  doses 
have  such  an  effect  upon  the  heart  action  for  days  after- 
ward that  a  slight  exertion  may  prove  fatal. 

The  compound  manufactured  in  largest  amount  in 
America  was  chlorpicrin.  This,  like  the  others,  is  not 
so  unfamiliar  as  it  seems.  As  may  be  seen  from  its 
formula,  CCI3NO2,  it  is  formed  by  joining  the  nitric 
acid  radical  (NO2),  found  in  all  explosives,  with  the 
main  part  of  chloroform  (HCCI3).  This  is  not  quite 
so  poisonous  as  phosgene,  but  it  has  the  advantage 
that  it  causes  nausea  and  vomiting.  The  soldier  so 
affected  is  forced  to  take  off  his  gas  mask  and  then  may 
fall  victim  to  more  toxic  gases  sent  over  simultane- 
ously. 

Chlorpicrin  is  a  liquid  and  is  commonly  loaded  in  a 
shell  or  bomb  with  20  per  cent,  of  tin  chloride,  which 
produces  dense  white  fumes  that  go  through  gas  masks. 
It  is  made  from  picric  acid  (trinitrophenol),  one  of 
the  best  known  of  the  high  explosives,  by  treatment 
with  chlorine.  The  chlorine  is  obtained,  as  it  is  in  the 
household,  from  common  bleaching  powder,  or  *^  chlo- 
ride of  lime.''  This  is  mixed  with  water  to  form  a 
cream  in  a  steel  still  18  feet  high  and  8  feet  in  diameter. 
A  solution  of  calcium  picrate,  that  is,  the  lime  salt  of 
picric  acid,  is  pumped  in  and  as  the  reaction  begins 
the  mixture  heats  up  and  the  chlorpicrin  distils  over 
with  the  steam.  When  the  distillate  is  condensed  the 
chlorpicrin,  being  the  heavier  liquid,  settles  out  under 
the  layer  of  water  and  may  be  drawn  off  to  fill  the  \ 
sheU. 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  227 

Much  of  what  a  student  learns  in  the  chemical  labora- 
tory he  is  apt  to  forget  in  later  life  if  he  does  not  fol- 
low it  up.  But  there  are  two  gases  that  he  always  re- 
members, chlorine  and  hydrogen  sulfide.  He  is  lucky 
if  he  has  escaped  being  choked  by  the  former  or  sick- 
ened by  the  latter.  He  can  imagine  what  the  effect 
would  be  if  two  offensive  fumes  could  be  combined 
without  losing  their  offensive  features.  Now  a  com- 
bination something  like  this  is  the  so-called  mustard 
gas,  which  is  not  a  gas  and  is  not  made  from  mustard. 
But  it  is  easily  gasified,  and  oil  of  mustard  is  about 
as  near  as  Nature  dare  come  to  making  such  sinful 
stuff.  It  was  first  made  by  Guthrie,  an  Englishman, 
in  1860,  and  rediscovered  by  a  German  chemist,  Victor 
Meyer,  in  1886,  but  he  found  it  so  dangerous  to  work 
with  that  he  abandoned  the  investigation.  Nobody 
else  cared  to  take  it  up,  for  nobody  could  see  any  use 
for  it.  So  it  remained  in  innocuous  desuetude,  a  mere 
name  in  '^Beilstein's  Dictionary,"  together  with  the 
thousands  of  other  organic  compounds  that  have  been 
invented  and  never  utilized.  But  on  July  12,  1917, 
the  British  holding  the  line  at  Ypres  were  besprinkled 
with  this  villainous  substance.  Its  success  was  so 
great  that  the  Germans  henceforth  made  it  their  main 
reliance  and  soon  the  Allies  followed  suit.  In  one 
offensive  of  ten  days  the  Germans  are  said  to  have 
used  a  million  shells  containing  2500  tons  of  mustard 
gas. 

The  making  of  so  dangerous  a  compound  on  a  large 
scale  was  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  set  before  th^ 
chemists  of  this  and  other  countries,  yet  it  was  suc- 
cessfully solved.    The  raw  materials  are  chlorine,  al- 


228  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

cohol  and  sulfur.  The  alcohol  is  passed  with  steam 
through  a  vertical  iron  tube  filled  with  kaolin  and 
heated.  This  converts  the  alcohol  into  a  gas  known 
as  ethylene  (C2H4).  Passing  a  stream  of  chlorine  gas 
into  a  tank  of  melted  sulfur  produces  sulfur  mono- 
chloride  and  this  treated  with  the  ethylene  makes  the 
** mustard.''  The  final  reaction  was  carried  on  at  the 
Edgewood  Arsenal  in  seven  airtight  tanks  or  '*  re- 
actors, ' '  each  having  a  capacity  of  30,000  pounds.  The 
ethylene  gas  being  led  into  the  tank  and  distributed 
through  the  liquid  sulfur  chloride  by  porous  blocks 
or  fine  nozzles,  the  two  chemicals  combined  to  form 
what  is  officially  named  **  di-chlor-di- ethyl- sulfide ' ' 
(CIC2H4SC2H4CI).  This,  however,  is  too  big  a  mouth- 
ful, so  even  the  chemists  were  glad  to  fall  in  with  the 
commonalty  and  call  it  ** mustard  gas.'' 

The  effectiveness  of  ** mustard"  depends  upon  its 
persistence.  It  is  a  stable  liquid,  evaporating  slowly 
and  not  easily  decomposed.  It  lingers  about  trenches 
and  dugouts  and  impregnates  soil  and  cloth  for  days. 
Gas  masks  do  not  afford  complete  protection,  for  even 
if  they  are  impenetrable  they  must  be  taken  off  some 
time  and  the  gas  lies  in  wait  for  that  time.  In  some 
cases  the  masks  were  worn  continuously  for  twelve 
hours  after  the  attack,  but  when  they  were  removed 
the  soldiers  were  overpowered  by  the  poison.  A  place 
may  seem  to  be  free  from  it  but  when  the  sun  heats  up 
the  ground  the  liquid  volatilizes  and  the  vapor  soaks 
through  the  clothing.  As  the  men  become  warmed 
up  by  work  their  skin  is  blistered,  especially  under  the 
armpits.  The  mustard  acts  like  steam,  producing 
burns  that  range  from  a  mere  reddening  to  serious 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  229 

ulcerations,  always  painful  and  incapacitating,  but  if 
treated  promptly  in  the  hospital  rarely  causing  death 
or  permanent  scars.  The  gas  attacks  the  eyes,  throat, 
nose  and  lungs  and  may  lead  to  bronchitis  or  pneu- 
monia. It  was  found  necessary  at  the  front  to  put  all 
the  clothing  of  the  soldiers  into  the  sterilizing  ovens 
every  night  to  remove  all  traces  of  mustard.  General 
Johnson  and  his  staff  in  the  77th  Division  were  pois- 
oned in  their  dugouts  because  they  tried  to  alleviate 
the  discomfort  of  their  camp  cots  by  bedding  taken 
from  a  neighboring  village  that  had  been  shelled  the 
day  before. 

Of  the  925  cases  requiring  medical  attention  at  the 
Edgewood  Arsenal  674  were  due  to  mustard.  During 
the  month  of  August  3%  per  cent,  of  the  mustard  plant 
force  were  sent  to  the  hospital  each  day  on  the  average. 
But  the  record  of  the  Edgewood  Arsenal  is  a  striking 
demonstration  of  what  can  be  done  in  the  prevention 
of  industrial  accidents  by  the  exercise  of  scientific  pru- 
dence. In  spite  of  the  fact  that  from  three  to  eleven 
thousand  men  were  employed  at  the  plant  for  the  year 
1918  and  turned  out  some  twenty  thousand  tons  of  the 
most  poisonous  gases  known  to  man,  there  were  only 
three  fatalities  and  not  a  single  case  of  blindness. 

Besides  the  four  toxic  gases  previously  described, 
chlorine,  phosgene,  chlorpicrin  and  mustard,  various 
other  compounds  have  been  and  many  others  might 
be  made.  A  list  of  those  employed  in  the  present  war 
enumerates  thirty,  among  them  compounds  of  bromine, 
arsenic  and  cyanogen  that  may  prove  more  formidable 
than  any  so  far  used.  American  chemists  kept  very 
mum  during  the  war  but  occasionally  one  could  not 


230  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

refrain  from  saying:  **If  the  Kaiser  knew  what  I 
know  he  would  surrender  unconditionally  by  tele- 
graph." No  doubt  the  science  of  chemical  warfare 
is  in  its  infancy  and  every  foresighted  power  has 
concealed  weapons  of  its  own  in  reserve.  One  deadly 
compound,  whose  identity  has  not  yet  been  disclosed, 
is  known  as  **  Lewisite, ' '  from  Professor  Lewis  of 
Northwestern,  who  was  manufacturing  it  at  the  rate 
of  ten  tons  a  day  in  the  ^* Mouse  Trap''  stockade  near 
Cleveland. 

Throughout  the  history  of  warfare  the  art  of  de- 
fense has  kept  pace  with  the  art  of  offense  and  the 
courage  of  man  has  never  failed,  no  matter  to  what 
new  danger  he  was  exposed.  As  each  new  gas  em- 
ployed by  the  enemy  was  detected  it  became  the  busi- 
ness of  our  chemists  to  discover  some  method  of  ab- 
sorbing or  neutralizing  it.  Porous  charcoal,  best  made 
from  such  dense  wood  as  coconut  shells,  was  packed 
in  the  respirator  box  together  with  layers  of  such 
dhemicals  as  will  catch  the  gases  to  be  expected.  Char- 
coal absorbs  large  quantities  of  any  gas.  Soda  lime 
and  potassium  permanganate  and  nickel  salts  were 
among  the  neutralizers  used. 

The  mask  is  fitted  tightly  about  the  face  or  over  the 
head  with  rubber.  The  nostrils  are  kept  closed  with  a 
clip  so  breathing  must  be  done  through  the  mouth  and 
no  air  can  be  inhaled  except  that  passing  through 
the  absorbent  cylinder.  Men  within  five  miles  of  the 
front  were  required  to  wear  the  masks  slung  on  their 
chests  so  they  could  be  put  on  within  six  seconds.  A 
well-made  mask  with  a  fresh  box  afforded  almost  com- 
plete immunity  for  a  time  and  the  soldiers  learned 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  231 

within  a  few  days  to  handle  their  masks  adroitly.  So 
the  problem  of  defense  against  this  new  offensive  was 
solved  satisfactorily,  while  no  such  adequate  protection 
against  the  older  weapons  of  bayonet  and  shrapnel  has 
yet  been  devised. 

Then  the  problem  of  the  offense  was  to  catch  the 
opponent  with  his  mask  off  or  to  make  him  take  it  off. 
Here  the  lachrymators  and  the  sternutators,  the  tear 
gases  and  the  sneeze  gases,  came  into  play.  Phenyl- 
carbylamine  chloride  would  make  the  bravest  soldier 
weep  on  the  battlefield  with  the  abandonment  of  a 
Greek  hero.  Di-phenyl-chloro-arsine  would  set  him 
sneezing.  The  Germans  alternated  these  with  diabol- 
ical ingenuity  so  as  to  catch  us  unawares.  Some  shells 
gave  off  voluminous  smoke  or  a  vile  stench  without 
doing  much  harm,  but  by  the  time  our  men  got  used  to 
these  and  grew  careless  about  their  masks  a  few  shells 
of  some  extremely  poisonous  gas  were  mixed  with  them. 

The  ideal  gas  for  belligerent  purposes  would  be 
odorless,  colorless  and  invisible,  toxic  even  when  di- 
luted by  a  million  parts  of  air,  not  set  on  fire  or  ex- 
ploded by  the  detonator  of  the  s-hell,  not  decomposed 
by  water,  not  readily  absorbed,  stable  enough  to  stand 
storage  for  six  months  and  capable  of  being  manufac- 
tured by  the  thousands  of  tons.  No  one  gas  will  serve 
all  aims.  For  instance,  phosgene  being  very  volatile 
and  quickly  dissipated  is  thrown  into  trenches  that  are 
soon  to  be  taken  while  mustard  gas  being  very  tenacious 
could  not  be  employed  in  such  a  case  for  the  trenches 
could  not  be  occupied  if  they  were  captured. 

The  extensive  use  of  poison  gas  in  warfare  by  all 
the  belligerents  is  a  vindication  of  the  American  pro- 


232  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

test  at  the  Hague  Conference  against  its  prohibition. 
At  the  First  Conference  of  1899  Captain  Mahan  argued 
very  sensibly  that  gas  shells  were  no  worse  than  other 
projectiles  and  might  indeed  prove  more  merciful  and 
that  it  was  illogical  to  prohibit  a  weapon  merely  be- 
cause of  its  novelty.  The  British  delegates  voted  with 
the  Americans  in  opposition  to  the  clause  *Hhe  con- 
tracting parties  agree  to  abstain  from  the  use  of  pro- 
jectiles the  sole  object  of  which  is  the  diffusion  of 
asphyxiating  or  deleterious  gases."  But  both  Great 
Britain  and  Germany  later  agreed  to  the  provision. 
The  use  of  poison  gas  by  Germany  without  warning 
was  therefore  an  act  of  treachery  and  a  violation  of 
her  pledge,  but  the  United  States  has  consistently  re- 
fused to  bind  herself  to  any  such  restriction.  The  facts 
reported  by  General  Amos  A.  Fries,  in  command  of  the 
overseas  branch  of  the  American  Chemical  Warfare 
Service,  give  ample  support  to  the  American  conten- 
tion at  The  Hague : 

Out  of  1000  gas  casualties  there  are  from  30  to  40  fatalities, 
while  out  of  1000  high  explosive  casualties  the  number  of 
fatalities  run  from  200  to  250.  While  exact  figures  are  as 
yet  not  available  concerning  the  men  permanently  crippled 
or  blinded  by  high  explosives  one  has  only  to  witness  the 
debarkation  of  a  shipload  of  troops  to  be  convinced  that  the 
number  is  very  large.  On  the  other  hand  there  is,  so  far 
as  known  at  present,  not  a  single  case  of  permanent  disability 
or  blindness  among  our  troops  due  to  gas  and  this  in  face  of 
the  fact  that  the  Germans  used  relatively  large  quantities  of 
this  material. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts  the  prejudice  against  the  use  of 
gas  must  gradually  give  way;  for  the  statement  made  to  the 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  233 

effect  that  its  use  is  contrary  to  the  principles  of  humanity 
will  apply  with  far  greater  force  to  the  use  of  high  explosives. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  for  certain  purposes  toxic  gas  is  an  ideal 
agent.  For  example,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  any  agent  more 
effective  or  more  humane  that  may  be  used  to  render  em 
opposing  battery  ineffective  or  to  protect  retreating  troops. 

Captain  Mahan's  argument  at  The  Hague  against 
the  proposed  prohibition  of  poison  gas  is  so  cogent  and 
well  expressed  that  it  has  been  quoted  in  treatises  on 
international  law  ever  since.  These  reasons  were, 
briefly : 

1.  That  no  shell  emitting  such  gases  is  as  yet  in  practical 
use  or  has  undergone  adequate  experiment;  consequently,  a 
vote  taken  now  would  be  taken  in  ignorance  of  the  facts  as  to 
whether  the  results  would  be  of  a  decisive  character  or  whether 
injury  in  excess  of  that  necessary  to  attain  the  end  of  warfare 
— the  immediate  disabling  of  the  enemy — ^would  be  inflicted. 
2.  That  the  reproach  of  cruelty  and  perfidy,  addressed  against 
these  supposed  shells,  was  equally  uttered  formerly  against 
firearms  and  torpedoes,  both  of  which  are  now  employed  with- 
out scruple.  Until  we  know  the  effects  of  such  asphyxiating 
shells,  there  was  no  saying  whether  they  would  be  more  or  less 
merciful  than  missiles  now  permitted.  That  it  was  illogical, 
and  not  demonstrably  humane,  to  be  tender  about  asphyxiating 
men  with  gas,  when  all  are  prepared  to  admit  that  it  was  al- 
lowable to  blow  the  bottom  out  of  an  ironclad  at  midnight, 
throwing  four  or  five  hundred  into  the  sea,  to  be  choked  by 
water,  with  scarcely  the  remotest  chance  of  escape. 

As  Captain  Mahan  says,  the  same  objection  has  been 
raised  at  the  introduction  of  each  new  weapon  of  war, 
even  though  it  proved  to  be  no  more  cruel  than  the 
old.    The  modem  rifle  ball,  swift  and  small  and  ster- 


234  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

ilized  by  heat,  does  not  make  so  bad  a  wound  as  the 
ancient  sword  and  spear,  but  we  all  remember  how 
gunpowder  was  regarded  by  the  dandies  of  Hotspur 's 
time: 

And  it  was  great  pity,  so  it  was,    . 
This  villainous  saltpeter  should  be  digg'd 
Out  of  the  bowels  of  the  harmless  earth 
Which  many  a  good  tall  fellow  had  destroy  'd 
So  cowardly ;  and  but  for  these  vile  guns 
He  would  himself  have  been  a  soldier. 

The  real  reason  for  the  instinctive  aversion  mani- 
fested against  any  new  arm  or  mode  of  attack  is  that  it 
reveals  to  us  the  intrinsic  horror  of  war.  We  naturally 
revolt  against  premeditated  homicide,  but  we  have  be- 
come so  accustomed  to  the  sword  and  latterly  to  the 
rifle  that  they  do  not  shock  us  as  they  ought  when  we 
think  of  what  they  are  made  for.  The  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  prohibits  the  infliction  of  *^  cruel  and 
unusual  punishments."  The  two  adjectives  were  ap- 
parently used  almost  synonymously,  as  though  any 
**unusuar'  punishment  were  necessarily  **  cruel,  *'  and 
so  indeed  it  strikes  us.  But  our  ingenious  lawyers 
were  able  to  persuade  the  courts  that  electrocution, 
though  unknown  to  the  Fathers  and  undeniably  ^*  un- 
usual, ' '  was  not  unconstitutional.  Dumdum  bullets  are 
rightfully  ruled  out  because  they  inflict  frightful  and 
often  incurable  wounds,  and  the  aim  of  humane  warfare 
is  to  disable  the  enemy,  not  permanently  to  injure  him. 

In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  American  and  Brit- 
ish delegates  the  First  Hague  Conference  adopted  the 
clause,  **The  contracting  powers  agree  to  abstain  from 
the  use  of  projectiles  the   [sole]   object  of  which  is 


h3 

t. 

H 

DO 

<  - 

o  -^ 

O  ' 

^  : 

o  1 

Q  ■; 

a  " 

H  ! 

H  I 

Z  1 

^  I 

a,  I 


B     c 


FIGHTING  WITH  FUMES  235 

the  diffusion  of  asphyxiating  or  deleterious  gases." 
The  word  *^sole''  (unique)  which  appears  in  the  origi- 
nal French  text  of  The  Hague  convention  is  left  out 
of  the  official  English  translation.  This  is  a  strange 
omission  considering  that  the  French  and  British  de- 
fended their  use  of  explosives  which  diffuse  asphyxiat- 
ing and  deleterious  gases  on  the  ground  that  this  was 
not  the  *^sole"  purpose  of  the  bombs  but  merely  an 
accidental  effect  of  the  nitric  powder  used. 

The  Hague  Congress  of  1907  placed  in  its  rules  for 
war:  *^It  is  expressly  forbidden  to  employ  poisons 
or  poisonous  weapons."  But  such  attempts  to  rule 
out  new  and  more  effective  means  of  warfare  are 
Hkely  to  prove  futile  in  any  serious  conflict  and  the 
restriction  gives  the  advantage  to  the  most  unscrupu- 
lous side.  We  Americans,  if  ever  we  give  our  assent 
to  such  an  agreement,  would  of  course  keep  it,  but  our 
enemy — whoever  he  may  be  in  the  future — ^will  be,  as 
he  always  has  been,  utterly  without  principle  and  will 
not  hesitate  to  employ  any  weapon  against  us.  Be- 
sides, as  the  Germans  held,  chemical  warfare  favors 
the  army  that  is  most  intelligent,  resourceful  and  disci- 
plined and  the  nation  that  stands  highest  in  science 
and  industry.  This  advantage,  let  us  hope,  will  be  on 
our  side. 


CHAPTEE  Xm 

PEODUCTS   OF   THE   ELECTRIC   FURNACE 

The  control  of  man  over  the  materials  of  nature 
has  been  vastly  enhanced  by  the  recent  extension  of 
the  range  of  temperature  at  his  command.  When 
Fahrenheit  stuck  the  bulb  of  his  thermometer  into  a 
mixture  of  snow  and  salt  he  thought  he  had  reached 
the  nadir  of  temperature,  so  he  scratched  a  mark  on 
the  tube  where  the  mercury  stood  and  called  it  zero. 
But  we  know  that  absolute  zero,  the  total  absence  of 
heat,  is  459  of  Fahrenheit's  degrees  lower  than  his 
zero  point.  The  modem  scientist  can  get  close  to  that 
lowest  limit  by  making  use  of  the  cooling  by  the  ex- 
pansion principle.  He  first  liquefies  air  under  pres- 
sure and  then  releasing  the  pressure  allows  it  to  boil 
off.  A  tube  of  hydrogen  immersed  in  the  liquid  air 
as  it  evaporates  is  cooled  down  until  it  can  be  liquefied. 
Then  the  boiling  hydrogen  is  used  to  liquefy  helium, 
and  as  this  boils  off  it  lowers  the  temperature  to  within 
three  or  four  degrees  of  absolute  zero. 

The  early  metallurgist  had  no  hotter  a  fire  than  he 
could  make  by  blowing  charcoal  with  a  bellows.  This 
was  barely  enough  for  the  smelting  of  iron.  But  by 
the  bringing  of  two  carbon  rods  together,  as  in  the  elec- 
tric arc  light,  we  can  get  enough  heat  to  volatilize  the 
carbon  at  the  tips,  and  this  means  over  7000  degrees 
Fahrenheit.  By  putting  a  pressure  of  twenty  atmos- 
pheres onto  the  arc  light  we  can  raise  it  to  perhaps 

236 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE  237 

14,000  degrees,  which  is  3000  degrees  hotter  than  the 
sun.  This  gives  the  modern  man  a  working  range  of 
about  14,500  degrees,  so  it  is  no  wonder  that  he  can 
perform  miracles. 

When  a  builder  wants  to  make  an  old  house  over  into 
a  new  one  he  takes  it  apart  brick  by  brick  and  stone 
by  stone,  then  he  puts  them  together  in  such  new  fash- 
ion as  he  likes.  The  electric  furnace  enables  the  chem- 
ist to  take  his  materials  apart  in  the  same  way.  As 
the  temperature  rises  the  chemical  and  physical  forces 
that  hold  a  body  together  gradually  weaken.  First 
the  solid  loosens  up  and  becomes  a  liquid,  then  this 
breaks  bonds  and  becomes  a  gas.  Compounds  break 
up  into  their  elements.  The  elemental  molecules  break 
up  into  their  component  atoms  and  finally  these  begin 
to  throw  off  corpuscles  of  negative  electricity  eighteen 
hundred  times  smaller  than  the  smallest  atom.  These 
electrons  appear  to  be  the  building  stones  of  the  uni- 
verse. No  indication  of  any  smaller  units  has  been 
iiscovered,  although  we  need  not  assume  that  in  the 
electron  science  has  delivered,  what  has  been  called,  its 
*ultim-atom.*'  The  Greeks  called  the  elemental  par- 
ticles of  matter  ** atoms''  because  they  esteemed  them 
*  indivisible,"  but  now  in  the  light  of  the  X-ray  we  can 
;vitness  the  disintegration  of  the  atom  into  electrons. 
^11  the  chemical  and  physical  properties  of  matter, 
except  perhaps  weight,  seem  to  depend  upon  the  num- 
)er  and  movement  of  the  negative  and  positive  elec- 
rons  and  by  their  rearrangement  one  element  may 
)e  transformed  into  another. 

So  the  electric  furnace,  where  the  highest  attainable 


238  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

temperature  is  combined  with  the  divisive  and  directive 
force  of  the  current,  is  a  magical  machine  for  accom- 
plishment of  the  metamorphoses  desired  by  the  creative 
chemist.  A  hundred  years  ago  Davy,  by  dipping  the 
poles  of  his  battery  into  melted  soda  lye,  saw  forming 
on  one  of  them  a  shining  globule  like  quicksilver.  It 
was  the  metal  sodium,  never  before  seen  by  man.  Now- 
adays this  process  of  electrolysis  (electric  loosening) 
is  carried  out  daily  by  the  ton  at  Niagara. 

The  reverse  process,  electro-synthesis  (electric  com- 
bining), is  equally  simple  and  even  more  important. 
By  passing  a  strong  electric  current  through  a  mixture 
of  lime  and  coke  the  metal  calcium  disengages  itself 
from  the  oxygen  of  the  lime  and  attaches  itself  to  the 
carbon.    Or,  to  put  it  briefly, 


CaO 

+ 

3C 

->      CaC,      +       CO 

lime 

coke 

calcium         carbon 
carbide      monoxide 

This  reaction  is  of  peculiar  importance  because  it 
bridges  the  gulf  between  the  organic  and  inorganic 
worlds.  It  was  formerly  supposed  that  the  substances 
found  in  plants  and  animals,  mostly  complex  com- 
pounds of  carbon,  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  could  only  be 
produced  by  *  *  vital  forces. ' '  If  this  were  true  it  meant' 
that  chemistry  was  limited  to  the  mineral  kingdom 
and  to  the  extraction  of  such  carbon  compounds  as 
happened  to  exist  ready  formed  in  the  vegetable  and 
animal  kingdoms.  But  fortunately  this  barrier  to  hu-i 
man  achievement  proved  purely  illusory.  The  organic 
field,  once  man  had  broken  into  it,  proved  easier  to 
work  in  than  the  inorganic. 


PKODUCTS  OF  ELECTEIC  FUKNACE  239 

But  it  must  be  confessed  that  man  is  dreadfully 
clumsy  about  it  yet.  He  takes  a  thousand  horsepower 
engine  and  an  electric  furnace  at  several  thousand  de- 
grees to  get  carbon  into  combination  with  hydrogen 
while  the  little  green  leaf  in  the  sunshine  does  it  quietly 
without  getting  hot  about  it.  Evidently  man  is  work- 
ing as  wastefully  as  when  he  used  a  thousand  slaves 
to  drag  a  stone  to  the  pyramid  or  burned  down  a  house 
to  roast  a  pig.  Not  until  his  laboratory  is  as  cool  and 
calm  and  comfortable  as  the  forest  and  the  field  can  the 
chemist  call  himself  completely  successful. 

But  in  spite  of  his  clumsiness  the  chemist  is  actually 
making  things  that  he  wants  and  cannot  get  elsewhere. 
The  calcium  carbide  that  he  manufactures  from  in- 
organic material  serves  as  the  raw  material  for  pro- 
ducing all  sorts  of  organic  compounds.  The  electric 
furnace  was  first  employed  on  a  large  scale  by  the 
Cowles  Electric  Smelting  and  Aluminum  Company  at 
Cleveland  in  1885.  On  the  dump  were  found  certain 
lumps  of  porous  gray  stone  which,  dropped  into  water, 
gave  off  a  gas  that  exploded  at  touch  of  a  match  with 
a  splendid  bang  and  flare.  This  gas  was  acetylene, 
and  we  can  represent  the  reaction  thus : 

.    CaQ  +  H,0      ->■       CA       +       CaO^H, 

calcium  added  to  water  gives  acetylene  and  slaked  lime 
carbide 

We  are  all  familiar  with  this  reaction  now,  for  it  is 
acetylene  that  gives  the  dazzling  light  of  the  automo- 
biles and  of  the  automatic  signal  buoys  of  the  seacoast. 
When  burned  with  pure  oxygen  instead  of  air  it  gives 

fbe  hottest  of  chemical  flames,  hotter  even  than  the 
xy-hydrogen  blowpipe.    For  although  a  given  weight 


240  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

of  hydrogen  will  give  off  more  heat  when  it  burns  than 
carbon  will,  yet  acetylene  will  give  off  more  heat  than 
either  of  its  elements  or  both  of  them  when  they  are 
separate.  This  is  because  acetylene  has  stored  up 
heat  in  its  formation  instead  of  giving  it  off  as  in  most 
reactions,  or  to  put  it  in  chemical  language,  acetylene 
is  an  endothermic  compound.  It  has  required  energy 
to  bring  the  H  and  the  C  together,  therefore  it  does 
not  require  energy  to  separate  them,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, energy  is  released  when  they  are  separated. 
That  is  to  say,  acetylene  is  explosive  not  only  when 
mixed  with  air  as  coal  gas  is  but  by  itself.  Under  a 
suitable  impulse  acetylene  will  break  up  into  its  origi- 
nal carbon  and  hydrogen  with  great  violence.  It  ex- 
plodes with  twice  as  much  force  without  air  as  ordinary 
coal  gas  with  air.  It  forms  an  explosive  compound 
with  copper,  so  it  has  to  be  kept  out  of  contact  with 
brass  tubes  and  stopcocks.  But  compressed  in  steel 
cylinders  and  dissolved  in  acetone,  it  is  safe  and  com- 
monly used  for  welding  and  melting.  It  is  a  marvelous 
though  not  an  unusual  sight  on  city  streets  to  see  ai 
man  with  blue  glasses  on  cutting  down  through  a  steell 
rail  with  an  oxy-acetylene  blowpipe  as  easily  as  a  car- 
penter saws  off  a  board.  With  such  a  flame  he  can 
carve  out  a  pattern  in  a  steel  plate  in  a  way  that  re- 
minds me  of  the  days  when  I  used  to  make  brackets 
with  a  scroll  saw  out  of  cigar  boxes.  The  torch  will 
travel  through  a  steel  plate  an  inch  or  two  thick  at  a 
rate  of  six  to  ten  inches  a  minute. 

The  temperatures  attainable  with  various  fuels  ir 
the  compound  blowpipe  are  said  to  be : 


igU 

fel 

' 

2  ■■■'wSS-fc 

r  m^am 

^Pi^ 

^ 

Courtesy  of  the  Carborundum  Co.,  Niagara  Falls 

A    BLOCK    OF    CARBORUNDUM    CRYSTALS 


Courtesy  of  the  Carborundun  Co.,  Niagara  Falls 

MAKING   CARBORUNDUM    IN    THE    ELECTRIC    FURNACE 

At  the  end  may  be  seen  the  attachments  for  the  wires  carrying  the  electric  current 
and  on  the  side  the  flames  from  the  burning  carbon 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTEIC  FUENACE     241 

Acetylene  with  oxygen 7878°  F. 

Hydrogen  with  oxygen 6785°  F. 

Coal  gas  with  oxygen. 6575°  F. 

Gasoline  with  oxygen 5788°  F. 

If  we  compare  the  formula  of  acetylene,  C2H2,  with 
that  of  ethylene,  C2H4,  or  with  ethane,  CoHg,  we  see 
that  acetylene  could  take  on  two  or  four  more  atoms. 
It  is  evidently  what  the  chemists  call  an  ** unsaturated'' 
compound,  one  that  has  not  reached  its  limit  of  hydro- 
genation.  It  is  therefore  a  very  active  and  ener- 
getic compound,  ready  to  pick  up  on  the  slightest 
instigation  hydrogen  or  oxygen  or  chlorine  or  any 
other  elements  that  happen  to  be  handy.  This  is  why 
it  is  so  useful  as  a  starting  point  for  synthetic  chem- 
istry. 

To  build  up  from  this  simple  substance,  acetylene, 
the  higher  compounds  of  carbon  and  oxygen  it  is  neces- 
sary to  call  in  the  aid  of  that  mysterious  agency,  the 
catalyst.  Acetylene  is  not  always  acted  upon  by  water, 
as  we  know,  for  we  see  it  bubbling  up  through  the  water 
when  prepared  from  the  carbide.  But  if  to  the  water 
be  added  a  little  acid  and  a  mercury  salt,  the  acetylene 
gas  will  unite  with  the  water  forming  a  new  compound, 
acetaldehyde.  We  can  show  the  change  most  simply 
in  this  fashion : 

acetylene  added  to  water  forms  acetaldehyde 

Acetaldehyde  is  not  of  much  importance  in  itself,  but 
is  useful  as  a  transition.  If  its  vapor  mixed  with  hy- 
drogen is  passed  over  finely  divided  nickel,  serving  as 


242  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

a  catalyst,  tlie  two  unite  and  we  have  alcohol,  according 
to  this  reaction : 

C2H4O  4-  H,         ->-     C^HaO 

acetaldehyde  added  to  hydrogen  forms  alcohol 

Alcohol  we  are  all  familiar  with— some  of  us  too 
familiar,  but  the  prohibition  laws  will  correct  that. 
The  point  to  be  noted  is  that  the  alcohol  we  have  made 
from  such  unpromising  materials  as  limestone  and  coal 
is  exactly  the  same  alcohol  as  is  obtained  by  the  fer- 
mentation of  fruits  and  grains  by  the  yeast  plant  as  in 
wine  and  beer.  It  is  not  a  substitute  or  imitation.  It 
is  not  the  wood  spirits  (methyl  alcohol,  CH4O),  pro- 
duced by  the  destructive  distillation  of  wood,  equally 
serviceable  as  a  solvent  or  fuel,  but  undrinkable  and 
poisonous. 

Now,  as  we  all  know,  cider  and  wine  when  exposed 
to  the  air  gradually  turn  into  vinegar,  that  is,  by  the 
growth  of  bacteria  the  alcohol  is  oxidized  to  acetic  acid. 
We  can,  if  we  like,  dispense  with  the  bacteria  and  speed 
up  the  process  by  employing  a  catalyst.  Acetaldehyde, 
which  is  halfway  between  alcohol  and  acid,  may  also  be 
easily  oxidized  to  acetic  acid.  The  relationship  is  read- 
ily seen  by  this : 

c,H,o     — ^     CbH.o     — y     as^o^ 

alcohol  acetaldehyde  acetic  acid 

Acetic  acid,  familiar  to  us  in  a  diluted  and  flavored 
form  as  vinegar,  is  when  concentrated  of  great  value 
in  industry,  especially  as  a  solvent.  I  have  already 
referred  to  its  use  in  combination  with  cellulose  as  a 
^^dope'*  for  varnishing  airplane  canvas  or  making  non- 
inflammable  film  for  motion  pictures.    Its  combination 


PEODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE     243 

with  lime,  calcium  acetate,  when  heated  gives  acetone, 
which,  as  may  be  seen  from  its  formula  (CgHgO)  is 
closely  related  to  the  other  compounds  we  have  been 
considering,  but  it  is  neither  an  alcohol  nor  an  acid. 
It  is  extensively  employed  as  a  solvent. 

Acetone  is  not  only  useful  for  dissolving  solids  but 
it  will  under  pressure  dissolve  many  times  its  volume 
of  gaseous  acetylene.  This  is  a  convenient  way  of 
transporting  and  handling  acetylene  for  lighting  or 
welding. 

If  instead  of  simply  mixing  the  acetone  and  acety- 
lene in  a  solution  we  combine  them  chemically  we  can 
get  isoprene,  which  is  the  mother  substance  of  ordinary 
India  rubber.  From  acetone  also  is  made  the  **war 
rubber'*  of  the  Germans  (methyl  rubber),  which  I  have 
mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter.  The  Germans  had 
been  getting  about  half  their  supply  of  acetone  from 
American  acetate  of  lime  and  this  was  of  course  shut 
off.  That  which  was  produced  in  Germany  by  the  dis- 
tillation of  beech  wood  was  not  even  enough  for  the 
high  explosives  needed  at  the  front.  So  the  Germans 
resorted  to  rotting  potatoes — or  rather  let  us  say,  since 
it  sounds  better — to  the  cultivation  of  Bacillus  ma- 
cerans.  This  particular  bacillus  converts  the  starch 
of  the  potato  into  two-thirds  alcohol  and  one-third 
acetone.  But  soon  potatoes  got  too  scarce  to  be  used 
up  in  this  fashion,  so  the  Germans  turned  to  calcium 
carbide  as  a  source  of  acetone  and  before  the  war  ended 
they  had  a  factory  capable  of  manufacturing  2000  tons 
of  methyl  rubber  a  year.  This  shows  the  advantage 
of  having  several  strings  to  a  bow. 

The  reason  why  acetylene  is  such  an  active  and  ac- 


244  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTBY 

quisitive  thing  the  chemist  explains,  or  rather  ex- 
presses, by  picturing  its  structure  in  this  shape : 

H— c~c— H 

Now  the  carbon  atoms  are  holding  each  other's  hands 
because  they  have  nothing  else  to  do.  There  are  no 
other  elements  around  to  hitch  on  to.  But  the  two  car- 
bons of  acetylene  readily  loosen  up  and  keeping  the 
connection  between  them  by  a  single  bond  reach  out 
in  this  fashion  with  their  two  disengaged  arms  and 
grab  whatever  alien  atoms  happen  to  be  in  the  vi- 
cinity : 

H— c— c— H 
I     I 

Carbon  atoms  belong  to  the  quadrumani  like  the 
monkeys,  so  they  are  peculiarly  fitted  to  forming  chains 
and  rings.  This  accounts  for  the  variety  and  complex- 
ity of  the  carbon  compounds. 

So  when  acetylene  gas  mixed  with  other  gases  is 
passed  over  a  catalyst,  such  as  a  heated  mass  of  iron 
ore  or  clay  (hydrates  or  silicates  of  iron  or  aluminum), 
it  forms  all  sorts  of  curious  combinations.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  steam  we  may  get  such  simple  compounds  as 
acetic  acid,  acetone  and  the  like.  But  when  three  acety- 
lene molecules  join  to  form  a  ring  of  six  carbon  atoms 
we  get  compounds  of  the  benzene  series  such  as  were 
described  in  the  chapter  on  the  coal-tar  colors.  If  am- 
monia is  mixed  with  acetylene  we  may  get  rings  with 
the  nitrogen  atom  in  place  of  one  of  the  carbons,  like 
the  pyridins  and  quinolins,  pungent  bases  such  as  are 
found  in  opium  and  tobacco.  Or  if  hydrogen  sulfide  is 
mixed  with  the  acetylene  we  may  get  thiophenes,  which 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE  245 

have  sulfur  in  the  ring.  So,  starting  with  the  simple 
combination  of  two  atoms  of  carbon  with  two  of  hydro- 
gen, we  can  get  directly  by  this  single  process  some  of 
the  most  complicated  compounds  of  the  organic  world, 
as  well  as  many  others  not  found  in  nature. 

In  the  development  of  the  electric  furnace  America 
played  a  pioneer  part.  Provost  Smith  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania,  who  is  the  best  authority  on  the 
history  of  chemistry  in  America,  claims  for  Robert 
Hare,  a  Philadelphia  chemist  born  in  1781,  the  honor 
of  constructing  the  first  electrical  furnace.  With  this 
crude  apparatus  and  with  no  greater  electromotive 
force  than  could  be  attained  from  a  voltaic  pile,  he  con- 
verted charcoal  into  graphite,  volatilized  phosphorus 
from  its  compounds,  isolated  metallic  calcium  and 
sjmthesized  calcium  carbide.  It  is  to  Hare  also  that 
we  owe  the  invention  in  1801  of  the  oxy-hydrogen  blow- 
pipe, which  nowadays  is  used  with  acetylene  as  well  as 
hydrogen.  With  this  instrument  he  was  able  to  fuse 
strontia  and  volatilize  platinum. 

But  the  electrical  furnace  could  not  be  used  on  a 
commercial  scale  until  the  dynamo  replaced  the  battery 
as  a  source  of  electricity.  The  industrial  development 
of  the  electrical  furnace  centered  about  the  search  for  a 
cheap  method  of  preparing  aluminum.  This  is  the  me- 
tallic base  of  clay  and  therefore  is  common  enough. 
But  clay,  as  we  know  from  its  use  in  making  porcelain, 
is  very  infusible  and  difficult  to  decompose.  Sixty 
years  ago  aluminum  was  priced  at  $140  a  pound,  but 
one  would  have  had  difficulty  in  buying  such  a  large 
quantity  as  a  pound  at  any  price.  At  international 
expositions  a  small  bar  of  it  might  be  seen  in  a  case 


246  CREATIYE  CHEMISTRY 

labeled  ** silver  from  clay."  Mechanics  were  anxious 
to  get  the  new  metal,  for  it  was  light  and  untarnishable, 
but  the  metallurgists  conld  not  furnish  it  to  them  at  a 
low  enough  price.  In  order  to  extract  it  from  clay  a 
more  active  metal,  sodium,  was  essential.  But  sodium 
also  was  rare  and  expensive.  In  those  days  a  professor 
of  chemistry  used  to  keep  a  little  stick  of  it  in  a  bottle 
under  kerosene  and  once  a  year  he  whittled  off  a  piece 
the  size  of  a  pea  and  threw  it  into  water  to  show  the 
class  how  it  sizzled  and  gave  off  hydrogen.  The  way 
to  get  cheaper  aluminum  was,  it  seemed,  to  get  cheaper 
sodium  and  Hamilton  Young  Oastner  set  himself  at 
this  problem.  He  was  a  Brooklyn  boy,  a  student  of 
Chandler's  at  Columbia.  You  can  see  the  bronze  tab- 
let in  his  honor  at  the  entrance  of  Havemeyer  Hall. 
In  1886  he  produced  metallic  sodium  by  mixing  caustic 
soda  with  iron  and  charcoal  in  an  iron  pot  and  heating 
in  a  gas  furnace.  Before  this  experiment  sodium  sold 
at  $2  a  pound ;  after  it  sodium  sold  at  twenty  cents  a 
pound. 

But  although  Castner  had  succeeded  in  his  experi- 
ment he  was  defeated  in  his  object.  For  while  he  was 
perfecting  the  sodium  process  for  making  aluminum 
the  electrolytic  process  for  getting  aluminum  directly 
was  discovered  in  Oberlin.  So  the  $250,000  plant  of 
the  *' Aluminium  Company  Ltd.''  that  Castner  had  got 
erected  at  Birmingham,  England,  did  not  make  alumi- 
num at  all,  but  produced  sodium  for  other  purposes 
instead.  Castner  then  turned  his  attention  to  the  elec- 
trolytic method  of  producing  sodium  by  the  use  of  the 
power  of  Niagara  Falls,  electric  power.  Here  in  1894 
he  succeeded  in  separating  common  salt  into  its  com- 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE  247 

ponent  elements,  chlorine  and  sodium,  by  passing  the 
electric  current  through  brine  and  collecting  the  sodium 
in  the  mercury  floor  of  the  cell.  The  sodium  by  the 
action  of  water  goes  into  caustic  soda.  Nowadays 
sodium  and  chlorine  and  their  components  are  made  in 
enormous  quantities  by  the  decomposition  of  salt. 
The  United  States  Government  in  1918  procured  nearly 
4,000,000  pounds  of  chlorine  for  gas  warfare. 

The  discovery  of  the  electrical  process  of  making 
aluminum  that  displaced  the  sodium  method  was  due 
to  Charles  M.  Hall.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Congrega- 
tional minister  and  as  a  boy  took  a  fancy  to  chemistry 
through  happening  upon  an  old  textbook  of  that  science 
in  his  father 's  library.  He  never  knew  who  the  author 
was,  for  the  cover  and  title  page  had  been  torn  off. 
The  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  electrolytic  production 
of  aluminum  was,  as  I  have  said,  because  its  compounds 
were  so  hard  to  melt  that  the  current  could  not  pass 
through.  In  1886,  when  Hall  was  twenty-two,  he  solved 
the  problem  in  the  laboratory  of  Oberlin  College  with 
no  other  apparatus  than  a  small  crucible,  a  gasoline 
burner  to  heat  it  with  and  a  galvanic  battery  to  supply 
the  electricity.  He  found  that  a  Greenland  mineral, 
known  as  cryolite  (a  double  fluoride  of  sodium  and 
aluminum),  was  readily  fused  and  would  dissolve 
alumina  (aluminum  oxide).  When  an  electric  current 
was  passed  through  the  melted  mass  the  metal  alumi- 
num would  collect  at  one  of  the  poles. 

In  working  out  the  process  and  defending  his  claims 
Hall  used  up  all  his  own  money,  his  brother's  and  his 
uncle 's,  but  he  won  out  in  the  end  and  Judge  Taf t  held 
that  his  patent  had  priority  over  the  French  claim  of 


248  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

Herault.    On  his  death,  a  few  years  ago,  Hall  left  his 
large  fortune  to  his  Alma  Mater,  Oberlin. 

Two  other  young  men  from  Ohio,  Alfred  and  Eugene 
Cowles,  with  whom  Hall  was  for  a  time  associated, 
were  the  first  to  develop  the  wide  possibilities  of  the 
electric  furnace  on  a  commercial  scale.  In  1885  they 
started  the  Cowles  Electric  Smelting  and  Aluminum 
Company  at  Lockport,  New  York,  using  Niagara 
power.  The  various  aluminum  bronzes  made  by  ab- 
sorbing the  electrolyzed  aluminum  in  copper  attracted 
immediate  attention  by  their  beauty  and  usefulness  in 
electrical  work  and  later  the  company  turned  out  other 
products  besides  aluminum,  such  as  calcium  carbide, 
phosphorus,  and  carborundum.  They  got  carborun- 
dum as  early  as  1885  but  miscalled  it  **  crystallized 
silicon,  *'  so  its  introduction  was  left  to  E.  A.  Acheson, 
who  was  a  graduate  of  Edison's  laboratory.  In 
1891  he  packed  clay  and  charcoal  into  an  iron  bowl,  con- 
nected it  to  a  dynamo  and  stuck  into  the  mixture  an 
electric  light  carbon  connected  to  the  other  pole  of  the 
d}Tiamo.  When  he  pulled  out  the  rod  he  found  its  end 
encrusted  with  glittering  crystals  of  an  unknown  sub- 
stance. They  were  blue  and  black  and  iridescent,  ex- 
ceedingly hard  and  very  beautiful.  He  sold  them  at 
first  by  the  carat  at  a  rate  that  would  amount  to  $560  a 
pound.  They  were  as  well  worth  buying  as  diamond 
dust,  but  those  who  purchased  them  must  have  re- 
gretted it,  for  much  finer  crystals  were  soon  on  sale  at 
ten  cents  a  pound.  The  mysterious  substance  turned 
out  to  be  a  compound  of  carbon  and  silicon,  the  sim- 
plest possible  compound,  one  atom  of  each,  CSi.  Ache- 
son  set  up  a  factory  at  Niagara,  where  he  made  it  in 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTKIC  FUENACE     249 

ten-ton  batches.  The  furnace  consisted  simply  of  a 
brick  box  fifteen  feet  long  and  seven  feet  wide  and 
deep,  with  big  carbon  electrodes  at  the  ends.  Between 
them  was  packed  a  mixture  of  coke  to  supply  the  car- 
bon, sand  to  supply  the  silicon,  sawdust  to  make  the 
mass  porous  and  salt  to  make  it  fusible. 


The   first   American   electric   furnace,    constructed   by  Robert   Hare   of 
Philadelphia.     From  "Chemistry  in  America,"  by  Edgar  Fahs  Smith 

The  substance  thus  produced  at  Niagara  Falls  is 
known  as  '^carborundum''  south  of  the  American-Cana- 
dian boundary  and  as  *' cry  stolon"  north  of  this  line, 
as  *'carbolon"  by  another  firm,  and  as  *' silicon  car- 
bide'* by  chemists  the  world  over.  Since  it  is  next  to 
the  diamond  in  hardness  it  takes  off  metal  faster  than 
emery  (aluminum  oxide),  using  less  power  and  wasting 


250  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTKY 

less  heat  in  futile  fireworks.  It  is  used  for  grindstones 
of  all  sizes,  including  those  the  dentist  uses  on  your 
teeth.  It  has  revolutionized  shop-practice,  for  articles 
can  be  ground  into  shape  better  and  quicker  than  they 
can  be  cut.  What  is  more,  the  artificial  abrasives  do* 
not  injure  the  lungs  of  the  operatives  like  sandstone. 
The  output  of  artificial  abrasives  in  the  United  States 
and  Canada  for  1917  was : 

Tons  Value 

Silicon  carbide   8,323        $1,074,152 

Aluminum  oxide   48,463  6,969,387 

A  new  use  for  carborundum  was  found  during  the 
war  when  Uncle  Sam  assumed  the  role  of  Jove  as 
**  cloud-compeller.'*  Acting  on  carborundum  with, 
chlorine — also,  you  remember,  a  product  of  electrical 
dissolution — the  chlorine  displaces  the  carbon,  forming 
silicon  tetra-chloride  (SiCl4),  a  colorless  liquid  resem- 
bling chloroform.  When  this  comes  in  contact  with 
moist  air  it  gives  off  thick,  white  fumes,  for  water  de- 
composes it,  giving  a  white  powder  (silicon  hydroxide) 
and  hydrochloric  acid.  If  ammonia  is  present  the  acid 
will  unite  with  it,  giving  further  white  fumes  of  the  salt, 
ammonium  chloride.  So  a  mixture  of  two  parts  of  sili- 
con chloride  with  one  part  of  dry  ammonia  was  used 
in  the  war  to  produce  smoke-screens  for  the  conceal- 
ment of  the  movements  of  troops,  batteries  and  vessels 
or  put  in  shells  so  the  outlook  could  see  where  they 
burst  and  so  ^et  the  range.  Titanium  tetra-chloride,  a 
similar  substance,  proved  50  per  cent,  better  than  sili' 
con,  but  phosphorus — ^which  also  we  get  from  the  elec^ 
trie  furnace — was  the  most  effective  mistifier  of  all. 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE  251 

Before  the  introduction  of  the  artificial  abrasives  fine 
g  rinding  was  mostly  done  by  emery,  which  is  an  impure 
form  of  aluminum  oxide  found  in  nature.  A  purer 
form  is  made  from  the  mineral  bauxite  by  driving  off 
its  combined  water.  Bauxite  is  the  ore  from  which  is 
made  the  pure  aluminum  oxide  used  in  the  electric  fur- 
nace for  the  production  of  metallic  aluminum.  For- 
merly we  imported  a  large  part  of  our  bauxite  from 
France,  but  when  the  war  shut  off  this  source  we  de- 
veloped our  domestic  fields  in  Arkansas,  Alabama  and 
Georgia,  and  these  are  now  producing  half  a  million 
tons  a  year.  Bauxite  simply  fused  in  the  electric  fur- 
nace makes  a  better  abrasive  than  the  natural  emery 
or  corundum,  and  it  is  sold  for  this  purpose  under  the 
name  of  '*aloxite,"  **alundum,''  **exolon,''  **lionite" 
or  **coralox.''  When  the  fused  bauxite  is  worked  up 
with  a  bonding  material  into  crucibles  or  muffles  and 
baked  in  a  kiln  it  forms  the  alundum  refractory  ware. 
Since  alundum  is  porous  and  not  attacked  by  acids  it 
is  used  for  filtering  hot  and  corrosive  liquids  that  would 
eat  up  filter-paper.  Carborundum  or  orystolon  is  also 
made  up  into  refractory  ware  for  high  temperature 
work.  When  the  fused  mass  of  the  carborundum  fur- 
nace is  broken  up  there  is  found  surrounding  the  car- 
borundum core  a  similar  substance  though  not  quite 
so  hard  and  infusible,  known  as  ** carborundum  sand*' 
or  *  *  siloxicon. ' '  This  is  mixed  with  fireclay  and  used 
]  for  furnace  linings. 

Many  new  forms  of  refractories  have  come  into  use 
to  meet  the  demands  of  the  new  high  temperature  work, 
he  essentials  are  that  it  should  not  melt  or  crumble 
t  high  heat  and  should  not  expand  and  contract  greatly 


252  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

under  changes  of  temperature  (low  coefficient  of 
thermal  expansion).  Whether  it  is  desirable  that  it 
should  heat  .through  readily  or  slowly  (coefficient  of 
thermal  conductivity)  depends  on  whether  it  is  wanted 
as  a  crucible  or  as  a  furnace  lining.  Lime  (calcium 
oxide)  fuses  only  at  the  highest  heat  of  the  electric  fur- 
nace, but  it  breaks  down  into  dust.  Magnesia  (magne- 
sium oxide)  is  better  and  is  most  extensively  employed. 
For  every  ton  of  steel  produced  five  pounds  of  mag- 
nesite  is  needed.  Formerly  we  imported  90  per  cent. 
of  our  supply  from  Austria,  but  now  we  get  it  from 
California  and  Washington.  In  1913  the  American 
production  of  magnesite  was  only  9600  tons.  In  1918 
it  was  225,000.  Zirconia  (zirconium  oxide)  is  still 
more  refractory  and  in  spite  of  its  greater  cost  zirkite 
is  coming  into  use  as  a  lining  for  electric  furnaces. 

Silicon  is  next  to  oxygen  the  commonest  element  in 
the  world.  It  forms  a  quarter  of  the  earth 's  crust,  yet 
it  is  unfamiliar  to  most  of  us.  That  is  because  it  is 
always  found  combined  with  oxygen  in  the  form  of 
silica  as  quartz  crystal  or  sand.  This  used  to  be  con- 
sidered too  refractory  to  be  blown  but  is  found  to  be 
easily  manipulable  at  the  high  temperatures  now  at  the 
command  of  the  glass-blower.  So  the  chemist  rejoices 
in  flasks  that  he  can  heat  red  hot  in  the  Bunsen  burner 
and  then  plunge  into  ice  water  without  breaking,  a] 
the  cook  can  bake  and  serve  in  a  dish  of  **pyre: 
which  is  80  per  cent,  silica. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  mind 
specimens  of  silicon  were  sold  as  laboratory  curiosities 
at  the  price  of  $100  an  ounce.  Two  years  later  it  was 
turned  out  by  the  barrelful  at  Niagara  as  an  accidental 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE     253 

by-prodnct  and  could  not  find  a  market  at  ten  cents  a 
pound.  Silicon  from  the  electric  furnace  appears  in 
the  form  of  hard,  glittering  metallic  crystals. 

An  alloy  of  iron  and  silicon,  ferro-silicon,  made  by 
heating  a  mixture  of  iron  ore,  sand  and  coke  in  the 
electrical  furnace,  is  used  as  a  deoxidizing  agent  in  the 
manufacture  of  steel. 

Since  silicon  has  been  robbed  with  difficulty  of  its 
oxygen  it  takes  it  on  again  with  great  avidity.  This 
has  been  made  use  of  in  the  making  of  hydrogen.  A 
mixture  of  silicon  (or  of  the  ferro-silicon  alloy  contain- 
ing 90  per  cent,  of  silicon)  with  soda  and  slaked  lime  is 
inert,  compact  and  can  be  transported  to  any  point 
where  hydrogen  is  needed,  say  at  a  battle  front.  Then 
the  **hydrogenite,''  as  the  mixture  is  named,  is  ignited 
by  a  hot  iron  ball  and  goes  off  like  thermit  with  the 
production  of  great  heat  and  the  evolution  of  a  vast 
volume  of  hydrogen  gas.  Or  the  ferro-silicon  may  be 
simply  burned  in  an  atmosphere  of  steam  in  a  closed 
tank  after  ignition  mth  a  pinch  of  gunpowder.  The 
iron  and  the  silicon  revert  to  their  oxides  while  the 
hydrogen  of  the  water  is  set  free.  The  French  *'sili- 
kol"  method  consists  in  treating  silicon  with  a  40  per 
cent,  solution  of  soda. 

J  Another  source  of  hydrogen  originating  with  the 
electric  furnace  is  ''hydrolith,"  which  consists  of  cal- 
3ium  hydride.  Metallic  calcium  is  prepared  from  lime 
in  the  electric  furnace.  Then  pieces  of  the  calcium  are 
spread  out  in  an  oven  heated  by  electricity  and  a  cur- 
rent of  dry  hydrogen  passed  through.  The  gas  is  ab- 
sorbed by  the  metal,  forming  the  hydride    (CaHg). 

J  This  is  packed  up  in  cans  and  when  hydrogen  is  desired 


254  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

it  is  simply  dropped  into  water,  when  it  gives  off  the 
gas  JTist  as  calcium  carbide  gives  off  acetylene. 

This  last  reaction  was  also  used  in  Germany  for  fill- 
ing Zeppelins.  For  calcium  carbide  is  convenient  and! 
portable  and  acetylene,  when  it  is  once  started,  as  by 
an  electric  shock,  decomposes  spontaneously  by  its  own; 
internal  heat  into  hydrogen  and  carbon.  The  latter  ia^ 
left  as  a  fine,  pure  lampblack,  suitable  for  printer's  ink.. 

Napoleon,  who  was  always  on  the  lookout  for  new 
inventions  that  could  be  utilized  for  military  purposes, 
seized  immediately  upon  the  balloon  as  an  observation 
station.  Within  a  few  years  after  the  first  ascent  hadi 
been  made  in  Paris  Napoleon  took  balloons  and  ap- 
paratus for  generating  hydrogen  with  him  on  his  *  ^  ar- 
cheological  expedition''  to  Egypt  in  which  he  hoped! 
to  conquer  Asia.  But  the  British  fleet  in  the  Mediter-i 
ranean  put  a  stop  to  this  experiment  by  intercepting 
the  ship,  and  military  aviation  waited  until  the  Greal 
War  for  its  full  development.  This  caused  a  sudden 
demand  for  immense  quantities  of  hydrogen  and  al! 
manner  of  means  was  taken  to  get  it.  Water  is  easilj 
decomposed  into  hydrogen  and  oxygen  by  passing  ar 
electric  current  through  it.  In  various  electrolyticaJ 
processes  hydrogen  has  been  a  wasted  by-product  since 
the  balloon  demand  was  slight  and  it  was  more  bother 
than  it  was  worth  to  collect  and  purify  the  hydrogen: 
Another  way  of  getting  hydrogen  in  quantity  is  by  pass^ 
ing  steam  over  red-hot  coke.  This  produces  the  blue 
water-gas,  which  contains  about  50  per  cent,  hydrogen* 
40  per  cent,  carbon  monoxide  and  the  rest  nitrogen 
and  carbon  dioxide.  The  last  is  removed  by  running 
the  mixed  gases  through  lime.    Then  the  nitrogen  anc 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE     255 

carbon  monoxide  are  frozen  out  in  an  air-liquefying 
apparatus  and  the  hydrogen  escapes  to  the  storage 
tank.  The  liquefied  carbon  monoxide,  allowed  to  re- 
gain its  gaseous  form,  is  used  in  an  internal  combus- 
tion engine  to  run  the  plant. 

There  are  then  many  ways  of  producing  hydrogen, 
but  it  is  so  light  and  bulky  that  it  is  difficult  to  get  it 
where  it  is  wanted.  The  American  Government  in  the 
war  made  use  of  steel  cylinders  each  holding  161  cubic 
feet  of  the  gas  under  a  pressure  of  2000  pounds  per 
square  inch.  Even  the  hydrogen  used  by  the  troops 
in  France  was  shipped  from  America  in  this  form. 
For  field  use  the  ferro-silicon  and  soda  process  was 
adopted.  A  portable  generator  of  this  type  was  ca- 
pable of  producing  10,000  cubic  feet  of  the  gas  per 
hour. 

The  discovery  by  a  Kansas  chemist  of  natural 
sources  of  helium  may  make  it  possible  to  free  balloon- 
[jig  of  its  great  danger,  for  helium  is  non-inflammable 
ind  almost  as  light  as  hydrogen. 

Other  uses  of  hydrogen  besides  ballooning  have  al- 
ready been  referred  to  in  other  chapters.  It  is  com- 
bined with  nitrogen  to  form  synthetic  ammonia.  It 
s  combined  with  oxygen  in  the  oxy-hydrogen  blowpipe 
;o  produce  heat.  It  is  combined  with  vegetable  and 
mimal  oils  to  convert  them  into  solid  fats.  There  is 
llso  the  possibility  of  using  it  as  a  fuel  in  the  internal 
lombustion  engine  in  place  of  gasoline,  but  for  this 
mrpose  we  must  find  some  way  of  getting  hydrogen 
)ortable  or  producible  in  a  compact  form. 

Aluminum,  like  silicon,  sodium  and  calcium,  has  been 
escued  by  violence  from  its  attachment  to  oxygen  and 


256  CREATIVE  CHEMSTRY 

like  these  metals  it  reverts  with  readiness  to  its  former 
afiSnity.    Dr.  Goldschmidt  made  use  of  this  reaction  in 
his  thermit  process.    Powdered  aluminum  is  mixed 
with  iron  oxide  (rust).    If  the  mixture  is  heated  at  any 
point  a  furious  struggle  takes  place  throughout  the 
whole  mass  between  the  iron  and  the  aluminum  as  to 
which  metal  shall  get  the  oxygen,  and  the  aluminum 
always  comes  out  ahead.     The  temperature  runs  up  to 
some  6000  degrees  Fahrenheit  within  thirty  seconds 
and  the  freed  iron,  completely  liquefied,  runs  down  into 
che  bottom  of  the  crucible,  where  it  may  be  drawn  off  by 
opening  a  trap  door.     The  newly  formed  aluminum 
oxide  (alumina)  floats  as  slag  on  top.     The  applica- 
tions of  the  thermit  process  are  innumerable.    If,  for; 
instance,  it  is  desired  to  mend  a  broken  rail  or  crank 
shaft  without  moving  it  from  its  place,  the  two  ends  are 
brought  together  or  fixed  at  the  proper  distance  apart 
A  crucible  filled  with  the  thermit  mixture  is  set  up 
above  the  joint  and  the  thermit  ignited  with  a  priming 
of  aluminum  and  barium  peroxide  to  start  it  off.     The 
barium  peroxide  having  a  superabundance  of  oxyger 
gives  it  up  readily  and  the  aluminum  thus  encouraged 
attacks  the  iron  oxide  and  robs  it  of  its  oxygen.    As 
soon  as  the  iron  is  melted  it  is  run  off  through  the  bot- 
tom of  the  crucible  and  fills  the  space  between  the  rai 
ends,  being  kept  from  spreading  by  a  mold  of  refrac 
tory  material  such  as  magnesite.     The  two  ends  of  th( 
rail  are  therefore  joined  by  a  section  of  the  same  size 
shape,   substance   and   strength   as   themselves.     Th< 
same  process  can  be  used  for  mending  a  fracture  o] 
supplying  a  missing  fragment  of  a  steel  casting  of  an^ 
size,  such  as  a  ship 's  propeller  or  a  cogwheel. 


^p  s  S  s  a 


PUMPING  MELTKD  ^VHITE  PHOSPHORUS  INTO  HAND  GRENADES  FILLED  WITH 
WATER EDGEWOOD   ARSENAL 


FILLING    SHELL    WITH    "MUSTARD    GAS 

Empty  shells  are  being  placed  on  small  trucks  to  be  run  into  the  filling  chamber. 
The  large  truck  in  the  foreground  contains  loaded  shell 


PRODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE     257 

For  smaller  work  thermit  has  two  rivals,  the  oxy- 
acetylene  torch  and  electric  welding.  The  former  has 
been  described  and  the  latter  is  rather  out  of  the  range 
of  this  volume,  although  I  may  mention  that  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  1918  there  was  launched  from  a  British 
shipyard  the  first  rivetless  steel  vessel.  In  this  the 
steel  plates  forming  the  shell,  bulkheads  and  floors  are 
welded  instead  of  being  fastened  together  by  rivets. 
There  are  three  methods  of  doing  this  depending  upon 
the  thickness  of  the  plates  and  the  sort  of  strain  they 
are  subject  to.  The  plates  may  be  overlapped  and 
tacked  together  at  intervals  by  pressing  the  two  elec- 
trodes on  opposite  sides  of  the  same  point  until  the  spot 
is  sufficiently  heated  to  fuse  together  the  plates  here. 
Or  roller  electrodes  may  be  drawn  slowly  along  the 
line  of  the  desired  weld,  fusing  the  plates  together  con- 
tinuously as  they  go.  Or,  thirdly,  the  plates  may  be 
butt-welded  by  being  pushed  together  edge  to  edge 
without  overlapping  and  the  electric  current  being 
passed  from  one  plate  to  the  other  heats  up  the  joint 
where  the  conductivity  is  interrupted. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  thermit  process  is  essen- 
tially like  the  ordinary  blast  furnace  process  of  smelt- 
ing iron  and  other  metals  except  that  aluminum  is  used 
instead  of  carbon  to  take  the  oxygen  away  from  the 
metal  in  the  ore.  This  has  an  advantage  in  case  car- 
bon-free metals  are  desired  and  the  process  is  used  for 
producing  raanganese,  tungsten,  titanium,  molybdenum, 
vanadium  and  their  alloys  with  iron  and  copper. 

During  the  war  thermit  found  a  new  and  terrible 
employment,  as  it  was  used  by  the  airmen  for  setting 
buildings  on  fire  and  exploding  ammunition  dumps. 


258  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

The  German  incendiary  bombs  consisted  of  a  per- 
forated steel  nose-piece,  a  tail  to  keep  it  falling  straight 
and  a  cylindrical  body  which  contained  a  tube  of  ther- 
mit packed  around  with  mineral  wax  containing  po- 
tassium perchlorate.  The  fuse  was  ignited  as  the  mis- 
sile was  released  and  the  thermit,  as  it  heated  up, 
melted  the  wax  and  allowed  it  to  flow  out  together  with 
the  liquid  iron  through  the  holes  in  the  nose-piece. 
The  American  incendiary  bombs  were  of  a  still  more 
malignant  type.  They  weighed  about  forty  pounds 
apiece  and  were  charged  with  oil  emulsion,  thermit 
and  metallic  sodium.  Sodium  decomposes  water  so 
that  if  any  attempt  were  made  to  put  out  with  a  hose 
a  fire  started  by  one  of  these  bombs  the  stream  of  water 
would  be  instantaneously  changed  into  a  jet  of  blazing 
hydrogen. 

Besides  its  use  in  combining  and  separating  differ- 
ent elements  the  electric  furaace  is  able  to  change  a 
single  element  into  its  various  forms.  Carbon,  for  in- 
stance, is  found  in  three  very  distinct  forms ;  in  hard, 
transparent  and  colorless  crystals  as  the  diamond,  in 
black,  opaque,  metallic  scales  as  graphite,  and  in  shape- 
less masses  and  powder  as  charcoal,  coke,  lampblack, 
and  the  like.  In  the  intense  heat  of  the  electric  arc 
these  forms  are  convertible  one  into  the  other  accord- 
ing to  the  conditions.  Since  the  third  form  is  the 
cheapest  the  object  is  to  change  it  into  one  of  the  other 
two.  Graphite,  plumbago  or  **blacklead,"  as  it  is  still 
sometimes  called,  is  not  found  in  many  places  and  more 
rarely  found  pure.  The  supply  was  not  equal  to  the 
demand  until  Acheson  worked  out  the  process  of  mak- 
ing it  by  packing  powdered  anthracite  between  the  elec- 


PEODUCTS  OF  ELECTEIC  FUENACE  259 

trodes  of  his  furnace.  In  this  way  graphite  can  be 
cheaply  produced  in  any  desired  quantity  and  quality. 

Since  graphite  is  infusible  and  incombustible  except 
at  exceedingly  high  temperatures,  it  is  extensively  used 
for  crucibles  and  electrodes.  These  electrodes  are 
made  in  all  sizes  for  the  various  forms  of  electric  lamps 
and  furnaces  from  rods  one-sixteenth  of  an  inch  in 
diameter  to  bars  a  foot  thick  and  six  feet  long.  It  is 
graphite  mixed  with  fine  clay  to  give  it  the  desired 
degree  of  hardness  that  forms  the  filling  of  our  *4ead'' 
pencils.  Finely  ground  and  flocculent  graphite  treated 
with  tannin  may  be  held  in  suspension  in  liquids  and 
even  pass  through  filter-paper.  The  mixture  with  wa- 
ter is  sold  under  the  name  of  **aquadag,"  with  oil  as 
'*oildag*'  and  with  grease  as  **gredag,"  for  lubrication. 
The  smooth,  slippery  scales  of  graphite  in  suspension 
slide  over  each  other  easily  and  keep  the  bearings  from 
rubbing  against  each  other. 

The  other  and  more  difficult  metamorphosis  of  car- 
bon, the  transformation  of  charcoal  into  diamond,  was 
successfully  accomplished  by  Moissan  in  1894.  Henri 
Moissan  was  a  toxicologist,  that  is  to  say,  a  Professor 
of  Poisoning,  in  the  Paris  School  of  Pharmacy,  who 
took  to  experimenting  with  the  electric  furnace  in  his 
leisure  hours  and  did  more  to  demonstrate  its  possi- 
bilities than  any  other  man.  With  it  he  isolated  fluo- 
rine, most  active  of  the  elements,  and  he  prepared  for 
the  first  time  in  their  purity  many  of  the  rare  metals 
that  have  since  found  industrial  employment.  He  also 
made  the  carbides  of  the  various  metals,  including  the 
now  common  calcium  carbide.  Among  the  problems 
that  he  undertook  and  solved  was  the  manufacture  of 


260  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

artificial  diamonds.  He  first  made  pure  charcoal  by 
burning  sugar.  This  was  packed  with  iron  in  the 
hollow  of  a  block  of  lime  into  which  extended  from  op- 
posite sides  the  carbon  rods  connected  to  the  dynamo. 
When  the  iron  had  melted  and  dissolved  all  the  carbon 
it  could,  Moissan  dumped  it  into  water  or  better  into 
melted  lead  or  into  a  hole  in  a  copper  block,  for  this 
cooled  it  most  rapidly.  After  a  crust  was  formed  it 
was  left  to  solidify  slowly.  The  sudden  cooling  of  the 
iron  on  the  outside  subjected  the  carbon,  which  was  held 
in  solution,  to  intense  pressure  and  when  the  bit  of 
iron  was  dissolved  in  acid  some  of  the  carbon  was  found 
to  be  crystallized  as  diamond,  although  most  of  it  was 
graphite.  To  be  sure,  the  diamonds  were  hardly  big 
enough  to  be  seen  with  the  naked  eye,  but  since  Mois- 
san's  aim  was  to  make  diamonds,  not  big  diamonds,  he 
ceased  his  efforts  at  this  point. 

To  pjjjjduce  large  diamonds  the  carbon  would  have  to 
be  liquefied  in  considerable  quantity  and  kept  in  that 
state  while  it  slowly  crystallized.  But  that  could  only 
be  accomplished  at  a  temperature  and  pressure  and 
duration  unattainable  as  yet.  Under  ordinary  at- 
mospheric pressure  carbon  passes  over  from  the  solid 
to  the  gaseous  phase  without  passing  through  the 
liquid,  just  as  snow  on  a  cold,  clear  day  will  evaporate 
without  melting. 

Probably  some  one  in  the  future  will  take  up  the 
problem  where  Moissan  dropped  it  and  find  out  how 
to  make  diamonds  of  any  size.  But  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion that  greatly  interests  either  the  scientist  or  the 
industrialist  because  there  is  not  much  to  be  learned 
from  it  and  not  much  to  be  made  out  of  it.    If  the  in- 


PEODUCTS  OF  ELECTRIC  FURNACE  261 

ventor  of  a  process  for  making  cheap  diamonds  could 
keep  his  electric  furnace  secretly  in  his  cellar  and  mar- 
ket his  diamonds  cautiously  he  might  get  rich  out  of 
it,  but  he  would  not  dare  to  turn  out  very  large  stones 
or  too  many  of  them,  for  if  a  suspicion  got  around  that 
he  was  making  them  the  price  would  fall  to  almost  noth- 
ing even  if  he  did  sell  another  one.  For  the  high 
price  of  the  diamond  is  purely  fictitious.  It  is  in  the 
first  place  kept  up  by  limiting  the  output  of  the  nat- 
ural stone  by  the  combination  of  dealers  and,  further, 
the  diamond  is  valued  not  for  its  usefulness  or  beauty 
but  by  its  real  or  supposed  rarity.  Chesterton  says: 
**A11  is  gold  that  glitters,  for  the  glitter  is  the  gold." 
This  is  not  so  true  of  gold,  for  if  gold  were  as  cheap  as 
nickel  it  would  be  very  valuable,  since  we  should  gold- 
plate  our  machinery,  our  ships,  our  bridges  and  our 
roofs.  But  if  diamonds  were  cheap  they  would  be  good 
for  nothing  except  grindstones  and  drills.  An  imita- 
tion diamond  made  of  heavy  glass  (paste)  cannot  be 
distinguished  from  the  genuine  gem  except  by  an  ex- 
pert. It  sparkles  about  as  brilliantly,  for  its  refractive 
index  is  nearly  as  high.  The  reason  why  it  is  not 
priced  so  highly  is  because  the  natural  stone  has  pre- 
sumably been  obtained  through  the  toil  and  sweat  of 
hundreds  of  negroes  searching  in  the  blue  ground  of 
the  Transvaal  for  many  months.  It  is  valued  exclu- 
sively by  its  cost.  To  wear  a  diamond  necklace  is  the 
same  as  hanging  a  certified  check  for  $100,000  by  a 
string  around  the  neck. 

Real  values  are  enhanced  by  reduction  in  the  cost  of 
the  price  of  production.  Fictitious  values  are  de- 
stroyed by  it.    Aluminum  at  twenty-five  cents  a  pound 


262  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

is  immensely  more  valuable  to  the  world  than  when  it 
is  a  curiosity  in  the  chemist's  cabinet  and  priced  at 
$160  a  pound. 

So  the  scope  of  the  electric  furnace  reaches  from  the 
costly  but  comparatively  valueless  diamond  to  the 
cheap  but  indispensable  steel.  As  F.  J.  Tone  says,  if 
the  automobile  manufacturers  were  deprived  of  Ni- 
agara products,  the  abrasives,  aluminum,  acetylene  for 
welding  and  high-speed  tool  steel,  a  factory  now  turn- 
ing out  five  hundred  cars  a  day  would  be  reduced  to  one 
hundred.  I  have  here  been  chiefly  concerned  with,  elec- 
tricity as  effecting  chemical  changes  in  combining  or 
separating  elements,  but  I  must  not  omit  to  mention 
its  rapidly  extending  use  as  a  source  of  heat,  as  in  the 
production  and  casting  of  steel.  In  1908  there  were 
only  fifty-five  tons  of  steel  produced  by  the  electric 
furnace  in  the  United  States,  but  by  1918  this  had  risen 
to  511,364  tons.  And  besides  ordinary  steel  the  elec- 
tric furnace  has  given  us  alloys  of  iron  with  the  once 
*'rare  metals''  that  have  created  a  new  science  of  metal- 
lurgy. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

METALS,   OLP  AND   NEW 

The  primitive  metallurgist  could  only  make  use  of 
such  metals  as  he  found  free  in  nature,  that  is,  such  as 
had  not  been  attacked  and  corroded  by  the  ubiquitous 
oxygen.  These  were  primarily  gold  or  copper,  though 
possibly  some  original  genius  may  have  happened  upon 
a  bit  of  meteoric  iron  and  pounded  it  out  into  a  sword. 
But  when  man  found  that  the  red  ocher  he  had  hitherto 
used  only  as  a  cosmetic  could  be  made  to  yield  iron  by 
melting  it  with  charcoal  he  opened  a  new  era  in  civiliza- 
tion, though  doubtless  the  ocher  artists  of  that  day 
denounced  him  as  a  utilitarian  and  deplored  the  deca- 
dence of  the  times. 

Iron  is  one  of  the  most  timid  of  metals.  It  has  a 
great  disinclination  to  be  alone.  It  is  also  one  of  the 
most  altruistic  of  the  elements.  It  likes  almost  every 
other  element  better  than  itself.  It  has  an  especial 
affection  for  oxygen,  and,  since  this  is  in  both  air  and 
water,  and  these  are  everywhere,  iron  is  not  long  with- 
out a  mate.  The  result  of  this  union  goes  by  various 
names  in  the  mineralogical  and  chemical  worlds,  but 
in  common  language,  which  is  quite  good  enough  for 
our  purpose,  it  is  called  iron  rust. 

Not  many  of  us  have  ever  seen  iron,  the  pure  metal, 
soft,  ductile  and  white  like  silver.  As  soon  as  it  is 
exposed  to  the  air  it  veils  itself  with  a  thin  film  of 
rust  and  becomes  black  and  then  red.    For  that  reason 

263 


264 


CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


there  is  practically  no  iron  in  the  world  except  what 
man  has  made.  It  is  rarer  than  gold,  than  diamonds ; 
we  find  in  the  earth  no  nuggets  or  crystals  of  it  the 
size  of  the  fist  as  we  find  of  these.    But  occasionally 


wmMMtm 


By  courtesy  Mineral  Foote-Note^. 

From  Agricola's  "De  Re  Metallica  1550."    Primitive  furnace  for 
smelting  iron  ore. 

there  fall  down  upon  us  out  of  the  clear  sky  great 
chunks  of  it  weighing  tons.  These  meteorites  are  the 
mavericks  of  the  universe.  We  do  not  know  where 
they  come  from  or  what  sun  or  planet  they  belonged 
to.  They  are  our  only  visitors  from  space,  and  if  all 
the  other  spheres  are  like  these  fragments  we  know 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  265 

we  are  alone  in  the  universe.  For  they  contain  rustless 
iron,  and  where  iron  does  not  rust  man  cannot  live, 
nor  can  any  other  animal  or  any  plant. 

Iron  rusts  for  the  same  reason  that  a  stone  rolls  down 
hill,  because  it  gets  rid  of  its  energy  that  way.  All 
things  in  the  universe  are  constantly  trying  to  get  rid 
of  energy  except  man,  who  is  always  trying  to  get  more 
of  it.  Or,  on  second  thought,  we  see  that  man  is  the 
greatest  spendthrift  of  all,  for  he  wants  to  expend  so 
much  more  energy  than  he  has  that  he  borrows  from 
the  winds,  the  streams  and  the  coal  in  the  rocks.  He 
robs  minerals  and  plants  of  the  energy  which  they  have 
stored  up  to  spend  for  their  own  purposes,  just  as  he 
robs  the  bee  of  its  honey  and  the  silk  worm  of  its 
cocoon. 

Man's  chief  business  is  in  reversing  the  processes  of 
nature.  That  is  the  way  he  gets  his  living.  And  one 
of  his  greatest  triumphs  was  when  he  discovered  how 
to  undo  iron  rust  and  get  the  metal  out  of  it.  In  the 
four  thousand  years  since  he  first  did  this  he  has  accom- 
plished more  tha^  in  the  millions  of  years  before. 
Without  knowing  the  value  of  iron  rust  man  could  at- 
tain only  to  the  culture  of  the  Aztecs  and  Incas,  the 
ancient  Egyptians  and  Assyrians. 

The  prosperity  of  modern  states  is  dependent  on 
the  amount  of  iron  rust  which  they  possess  and  utilize. 
England,  United  States,  Germany,  all  nations  are  com- 
peting to  see  which  can  dig  the  most  iron  rust  out  of 
the  ground  and  make  out  of  it  railroads,  bridges,  build- 
ings, machinery,  battleships  and  such  other  tools  and 
toys  and  then  let  them  relapse  into  rust  again.  Civ- 
ilization can  be  measured  by  the  amount  of  iron  rusted 


266  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

per  capita,  or  better,  by  the  amount  rescued  from  rust. 

But  we  are  devoting  so  much  space  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  material  aspects  of  iron  that  we  are  like  to 
neglect  its  esthetic  and  ethical  uses.  The  beauty  of 
nature  is  very  largely  dependent  upon  the  fact  that 
iron  rust  and,  in  fact,  all  the  common  compounds  of 
iron  are  colored.  Few  elements  can  assume  so  many 
tints.  Look  at  the  paint  pot  canons  of  the  Yellowstone. 
Cheap  glass  bottles  turn  out  brown,  green,  blue,  yellow 
or  black,  according  to  the  amount  and  kind  of  iron 
they  contain.  We  build  a  house  of  cream-colored  brick, 
varied  with  speckled  brick  and  adorned  with  terra  cotta 
ornaments  of  red,  yellow  and  green,  all  due  to  iron. 
Iron  rusts,  therefore  it  must  be  painted;  but  what  is 
there  better  to  paint  it  with  than  iron  rust  itself?  It 
is  cheap  and  durable,  for  it  cannot  rust  any  more  than 
a  dead  man  can  die.  And  what  is  also  of  importance, 
it  is  a  good,  strong,  clean  looking,  endurable  color. 
Whenever  we  take  a  trip  on  the  railroad  and  see  the 
miles  of  cars,  the  acres  of  roofing  and  wall,  the  towns 
full  of  brick  buildings,  we  rejoice  that  iron  rust  is  red, 
not  white  or  some  less  satisfying  color. 

We  do  not  know  why  it  is  so.  Zinc  and  aluminum 
are  metals  very  much  like  iron  in  chemical  properties, 
but  all  their  salts  are  colorless.  Why  is  it  that  the 
most  useful  of  the  metals  forms  the  most  beautiful  com- 
pounds? Some  say.  Providence;  some  say,  chance; 
some  say  nothing.  But  if  it  had  not  been  so  we  would 
have  lost  most  of  the  beauty  of  rocks  and  trees  and 
human  beings.  For  the  leaves  and  the  flowers  would 
all  be  white,  and  all  the  men  and  women  would  look 
like  walking  corpses.    Without  color  in  the  flower  what 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  267 

would  the  bees  and  painters  do?  If  all  the  grass  and 
trees  were  white,  it  would  be  like  winter  all  the  year 
round.  If  we  had  white  blood  in  our  veins  like  some 
of  the  insects  it  would  be  hard  lines  for  our  poets. 
And  what  would  become  of  our  morality  if  we  could  not 
blush? 

**As  for  me,  I  thrill  to  see 

The  bloom  a  velvet  cheek  discloses! 
Made  of  dust!     I  well  believe  it, 
So  are  lilies,  so  are  roses." 

An  etiolated  earth  would  be  hardly  worth  living  in. 

The  chlorophyll  of  the  leaves  and  the  hemoglobin 
of  the  blood  are  similar  in  constitution.  Chlorophyll 
contains  magnesium  in  place  of  Iron  but  iron  is  neces- 
sary to  its  formation.  We  all  know  how  pale  a  plant 
gets  if  its  soil  is  short  of  iron.  It  is  the  iron  in  the 
leaves  that  enables  the  plants  to  store  up  the  energy  of 
the  sunshine  for  their  own  use  and  ours.  It  is  the  iron 
in  our  blood  that  enables  us  to  get  the  iron  out  of  iron 
rust  and  make  it  into  machines  to  supplement  our  fee- 
ble hands.  Iron  is  for  us  internally  the  carrier  of 
energy,  just  as  in  the  form  of  a  trolley  wire  or  of  a 
third  rail  it  conveys  power  to  the  electric  car.  With- 
draw the  iron  from  the  blood  as  indicated  by  the 
pallor  of  the  cheeks,  and  we  become  weak,  faint  and 
finally  die.  If  the  amount  of  iron  in  the  blood  gets 
too  small  the  disease  germs  that  are  always  attacking 
us  are  no  longer  destroyed,  but  multiply  without  check 
and  conquer  us.  When  the  iron  ceases  to  work 
efficiently  we  are  killed  by  the  poison  we  ourselves 
generate. 


268  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

Counting  the  number  of  iron-bearing  corpuscles  in 
the  blood  is  now  a  common  method  of  determining  dis- 
ease. It  might  also  be  useful  in  moral  diagnosis.  A 
microscopical  and  chemical  laboratory  attached  to  the 
courtroom  would  give  information  of  more  value  than 
some  of  the  evidence  now  obtained.  For  the  anemic 
and  the  florid  vices  need  very  different  treatment.  An 
excess  or  a  deficiency  of  iron  in  the  body  is  liable  to 
result  in  criminality.  A  chemical  system  of  morals 
might  be  developed  on  this  basis.  Among  the  ferrugi- 
nous sins  would  be  placed  murder,  violence  and  licen- 
tiousness. Among  the  non-ferruginous,  cowardice, 
sloth  and  lying.  The  former  would  be  mostly  sins  of 
commission,  the  latter,  sins  of  omission.  The  virtues 
could,  of  course,  be  similarly  classified ;  the  ferruginous 
virtues  would  include  courage,  self-reliance  and  hope- 
fulness; the  non-ferruginous,  peaceableness,  meekness 
and  chastity.  According  to  this  ethical  criterion  the 
moral  man  would  be  defined  as  one  whose  conduct  is 
better  than  we  should  expect  from  the  per  cent,  of  iron 
in  his  blood. 

The  reason  why  iron  is  able  to  serve  this  unique  pur- 
pose of  conveying  life-giving  air  to  all  parts  of  the 
body  is  because  it  rusts  so  readily.  Oxidation  and  de- 
oxidation  proceed  so  quietly  that  the  tenderest  cells 
are  fed  without  injury.  The  blood  changes  from  red 
to  blue  and  vice  versa  with  greater  ease  and  rapidity 
than  in  the  corresponding  alternations  of  social  status 
in  a  democracy.  It  is  because  iron  is  so  rustable  that 
it  is  so  useful.  The  factories  with  big  scrap-heaps  of 
rusting  machinery  are  makiQg  the  most  money.  The 
pyramids  are  the  most  enduring  structures  raised  by 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  269 

the  hand  of  man,  but  they  have  not  sheltered  so  many- 
people  in  their  forty  centuries  as  our  skyscrapers  that 
are  already  rusting. 

We  have  to  carry  on  this  eternal  conflict  against  rust 
because  oxygen  is  the  most  ubiquitous  of  the  elements 
and  iron  can  only  escape  its  ardent  embraces  by  hiding 
away  in  the  center  of  the  earth.  The  united  elements, 
known  to  the  chemist  as  iron  oxide  and  to  the  outside 
world  as  rust,  are  among  the  commonest  of  compounds 
and  their  colors,  yellow  and  red  like  the  Spanish  flag, 
are  displayed  on  every  mountainside.  From  the  time 
of  Tubal  Cain  man  has  ceaselessly  labored  to  divorce 
these  elements  and,  having  once  separated  them,  to 
keep  them  apart  so  that  the  iron  may  be  retained  in  his 
service.  But  here,  as  usual,  man  is  fighting  against 
nature  and  his  gains,  as  always,  are  only  temporary. 
Sooner  or  later  his  vigilance  is  circumvented  and  the 
metal  that  he  has  extricated  by  the  fiery  furnace  re- 
turns to  its  natural  affinity.  The  flint  arrowheads,  the 
bronze  spearpoints,  the  gold  ornaments,  the  wooden 
idols  of  prehistoric  man  are  still  to  be  seen  in  our 
museums,  but  his  earliest  steel  swords  have  long  since 
crumbled  into  dust. 

Every  year  the  blast  furnaces  of  the  world  release 
72,000,000  tons  of  iron  from  its  oxides  and  every  year 
a  large  part,  said  to  be  a  quarter  of  that  amount,  re- 
verts to  its  primeval  forms.  If  so,  then  man  after  five 
thousand  years  of  metallurgical  industry  has  barely 
got  three  years  ahead  of  nature,  and  should  he  cease 
his  efforts  for  a  generation  there  would  be  little  left 
to  show  that  man  had  ever  learned  to  extract  iron  from 
its  ores.    The  old  question,  **What  becomes  of  all  the 


270  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

pins?^'  may  be  as  well  asked  of  rails,  pipes  and  thresh- 
ing machines.  The  end  of  all  iron  is  the  same.  How- 
ever many  may  be  its  metamorphoses  while  in  the  ser\^- 
ice  of  man  it  relapses  at  last  into  its  original  state  of 
oxidation.  To  save  a  pound  of  iron  from  corrosion  is 
then  as  much  a  benefit  to  the  world  as  to  produce  an- 
other pound  from  the  ore.  In  fact  it  is  of  much  greater 
benefit,  for  it  takes  four  pounds  of  coal  to  produce  one 
pound  of  steel,  so  whenever  a  piece  of  iron  is  allowed 
to  oxidize  it  means  that  four  times  as  much  coal  must 
be  oxidized  in  order  to  replace  it.  And  the  beds  of 
coal  will  be  exhausted  before  the  beds  of  iron  ore. 

If  we  are  ever  to  get  ahead,  if  we  are  to  gain  any 
respite  from  this  enormous  waste  of  labor  and  natural 
resources,  we  must  find  ways  of  preventing  the  iron 
which  we  have  obtained  and  fashioned  into  useful  tools 
from  being  lost  through  oxidation.  Now  there  is  only 
one  way  of  keeping  iron  and  oxygen  from  uniting  and 
that  is  to  keep  them  apart.  A  very  thin  dividing  wall 
will  serve  for  the  purpose,  for  instance,  a  film  of  oil. 
But  ordinary  oil  will  rub  off,  so  it  is  better  to  cover  the 
surface  with  an  oil-like  linseed  which  oxidizes  to  a  hard 
elastic  and  adhesive  coating.  If  with  linseed  oil  we 
mix  iron  oxide  or  some  other  pigment  we  have  a  paint 
that  will  protect  iron  perfectly  so  long  as  it  is  un- 
broken. But  let  the  paint  wear  off  or  crack  so  that  air 
can  get  at  the  iron,  then  rust  will  form  and  spread 
underneath  the  paint  on  all  sides.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  porcelain-like  enamel  with  which  our  kitchen 
iron  ware  is  nowadays  coated.  So  long  as  the  enamel 
holds  it  is  all  right  but  once  it  is  broken  through  at 
any  point  it  begins  to  scale  off  and  gets  into  our  food. 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  271 

Obviously  it  would  be  better  for  some  purposes  if 
we  could  coat  our  iron  with  another  and  less  easily 
oxidized  metal  than  with  such  dissimilar  substances  as 
paint  or  porcelain.  Now  the  nearest  relative  to  iron 
is  nickel,  and  a  layer  of  this  of  any  desired  thickness 
may  be  easily  deposited  by  electricity  upon  any  surface 
however  irregular.  Nickel  takes  a  bright  polish  and 
keeps  it  well,  so  nickel  plating  has  become  the  favorite 
method  of  protection  for  small  objects  where  the  ex- 
pense is  not  prohibitive.  Copper  plating  is  used  for 
fine  wires.  A  sheet  of  iron  dipped  in  melted  tin  comes 
out  coated  with  a  thin  adhesive  layer  of  the  latter  metal. 
Such  tinned  plate  commonly  known  as  **tin*^  has  be- 
come the  favorite  material  for  pans  and  cans.  But  if 
the  tin  is  scratched  the  iron  beneath  rusts  more  rap- 
idly than  if  the  tin  were  not  there,  for  an  electrolytic 
action  is  set  up  and  the  iron,  being  the  negative  ele- 
ment of  the  couple,  suffers  at  the  expense  of  the  tin. 

With  zinc  it  is  quite  the  opposite.  Zinc  is  negative 
toward  iron,  so  when  the  two  are  in  contact  and  ex- 
posed to  the  weather  the  zinc  is  oxidized  first.  A  zinc 
plating  affords  the  protection  of  a  Swiss  Guard,  it  holds 
out  as  long  as  possible  and  when  broken  it  perishes  to 
the  last  atom  before  it  lets  the  oxygen  get  at  the  iron. 
The  zinc  may  be  applied  in  four  different  ways.  (1) 
It  may  be  deposited  by  electrolysis  as  in  nickel  plating, 
but  the  zinc  coating  is  more  apt  to  be  porous.  (2)  The 
sheets  or  articles  may  be  dipped  in  a  bath  of  melted 
zinc.  This  gives  us  the  familiar  ** galvanized  iron," 
the  most  useful  and  when  well  done  the  most  effective 
of  rust  preventives.  Besides  these  older  methods  of 
applying  zinc  there  are  now  two  new  ones.     (3)  One 


272  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

is  the  Schoop  process  by  wliieh  a  wire  of  zinc  or  other 
metal  is  fed  into  an  oxyhydrogen  air  blast  of  such  heat 
and  power  that  it  is  projected  as  a  spray  of  minute 
drops  with  the  speed  of  bullets  and  any  object  sub- 
jected to  the  bombardment  of  this  metallic  mist  receives 
a  coating  as  thick  as  desired.  The  zinc  spray  is  so  fine 
and  cool  that  it  may  be  received  on  cloth,  lace,  or  the 
bare  hand.  The  Schoop  metallizing  process  has  re- 
cently been  improved  by  the  use  of  the  electric  current 
instead  of  the  blowpipe  for  melting  the  metal.  Two 
zinc  wires  connected  with  any  electric  system,  prefer- 
ably the  direct,  are  fed  into  the  ** pistol.''  Where  the 
wires  meet  an  electric  arc  is  set  up  and  the  melted  zinc 
is  sprayed  out  by  a  jet  of  compressed  air.  (4)  In  the 
Sherardizing  process  the  articles  are  put  into  a  tight 
drum  with  zinc  dust  and  heated  to  800°  F.  The  zinc 
at  this  temperature  attacks  the  iron  and  forms  a  series 
of  alloys  ranging  from  pure  zinc  on  the  top  to  pure 
iron  at  the  bottom  of  the  coating.  Even  if  this  cracks 
in  part  the  iron  is  more  or  less  protected  from  corro- 
sion so  long  as  any  zinc  remains.  Aluminum  is  used 
similarly  in  the  calorizing  process  for  coating  iron, 
copper  or  brass.  First  a  surface  alloy  is  formed  by 
heating  the  metal  with  aluminum  powder.  Then  the 
temperature  is  raised  to  a  high  degree  so  as  to  cause 
the  aluminum  on  the  surface  to  diffuse  into  the  metal 
and  afterwards  it  is  again  baked  in  contact  with  alumi- 
num dust  which  puts  upon  it  a  protective  plating  of  the 
pure  aluminum  which  does  not  oxidize. 

Another  way  of  protecting  iron  ware  from  rusting 
is  to  rust  it.  This  is  a  sort  of  prophylactic  method  like 
that  adopted  by  modem  medicine  where  inoculation 


m 


O.Sot 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  273 

with  a  mild  culture  prevents  a  serious  attack  of  the 
disease.  The  action  of  air  and  water  on  iron  forms  a 
series  of  compounds  and  mixtures  of  them.  Those  that 
contain  least  oxygen  are  hard,  black  and  magnetic  like 
iron  itself.  Those  that  have  most  oxygen  are  red  and 
yellow  powders.  By  putting  on  a  tight  coating  of  the 
black  oxide  we  can  prevent  or  hinder  the  oxidation  from 
going  on  into  the  pulverulent  stage.  This  is  done  in 
several  ways.  In  the  Bower-Barff  process  the  articles 
to  be  treated  are  put  into  a  closed  retort  and  a  current 
of  superheated  steam  passed  through  for  twenty  min- 
utes followed  by  a  current  of  producer  gas  (carbon 
monoxide),  to  reduce  any  higher  oxides  that  may  have 
been  formed.  In  the  Gesner  process  a  current  of  gaso- 
line vapor  is  used  as  the  reducing  agent.  The  blueing 
of  watch  hands,  buckles  and  the  like  may  be  done  by 
dipping  them  into  an  oxidizing  bath  such  as  melted 
saltpeter.  But  in  order  to  afford  complete  protection 
the  layer  of  black  oxide  must  be  thickened  by  repeat- 
ing the  process  which  adds  to  the  time  and  expense. 
This  causes  a  slight  enlargement  and  the  high  tem- 
perature often  warps  the  ware  so  it  is  not  suitable  for 
nicely  adjusted  parts  of  machinery  and  of  course  tools 
would  lose  their  temper  by  the  heat. 

A  new  method  of  rust  proofing  which  is  free  from 
these  disadvantages  is  the  phosphate  process  invented 
by  Thomas  Watts  Coslett,  an  English  chemist,  in  1907, 
and  developed  in  America  by  the  Parker  Company  of 
Detroit.  This  consists  simply  in  dipping  the  sheet  iron 
or  articles  into  a  tank  filled  with  a  dilute  solution  of 
iron  phosphate  heated  nearly  to  the  boiling  point  by 
steam  pipes.    Bubbles  of  hydrogen  stream  off  rapidly 


274  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

at  first,  then  slower,  and  at  the  end  of  half  an  hour  or 
longer  the  action  ceases,  and  the  process  is  complete. 
What  has  happened  is  that  the  iron  has  been  converted 
into  a  basic  iron  phosphate  to  a  depth  depending 
upon  the  density  of  articles  processed.  Any  one  who 
has  studied  elementary  qualitative  analysis  will  re- 
member that  when  he  added  ammonia  to  his  *^  un- 
known'' solution,  iron  and  phosphoric  acid,  if  present, 
were  precipitated  together,  or  in  other  words,  iron 
phosphate  is  insoluble  except  in  acids.  Therefore  a 
superficial  film  of  such  phosphate  will  protect  the  iron 
underneath  except  from  acids.  This  film  is  not  a  coat- 
ing added  on  the  outside  like  paint  and  enamel  or  tin 
and  nickel  plate.  It  is  therefore  not  apt  to  scale  off 
and  it  does  not  increase  the  size  of  the  article.  No 
high  heat  is  required  as  in  the  Sherardizing  and  Bower- 
Barff  processes,  so  steel  tools  can  be  treated  without 
losing  their  temper  or  edge. 

The  deposit  consisting  of  ferrous  and  ferric  phos- 
phates mixed  with  black  iron  oxide  may  be  varied  in 
composition,  texture  and  color.  It  is  ordinarily  a  dull 
gray  and  oiling  gives  a  soft  mat  black  more  in  accord- 
ance with  modem  taste  than  the  shiny  nickel  plating 
that  delighted  our  fathers.  Even  the  military  nowa- 
days show  more  quiet  taste  than  formerly  and  have 
abandoned  their  glittering  accoutrements. 

The  phosphate  bath  is  not  expensive  and  can  be  used 
continuously  for  months  by  adding  more  of  the  con- 
centrated solution  to  keep  up  the  strength  and  remov- 
ing the  sludge  that  is  precipitated.  Besides  the  iron 
the  solution  contains  the  phosphates  of  other  metals 
such  as  caleium  or  strontium,  manganese,  molybdenum, 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  275 

or  tungsten,  according  to  the  particular  purpose. 
Since  the  phosphating  solution  does  not  act  on  nickel 
it  may  be  used  on  articles  that  have  been  partly  nickel- 
plated  so  there  may  be  produced,  for  instance,  a  bright 
raised  design  against  a  dull  black  background.  Then, 
too,  the  surface  left  by  the  Parker  process  is  finely 
etched  so  it  affords  a  good  attachment  for  paint  or 
enamel  if  further  protection  is  needed.  Even  if  the 
enamel  does  crack,  the  iron. beneath  is  not  so  apt  to 
rust  and  scale  off  the  coating. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  methods  which  are  now 
being  used  to  combat  our  eternal  enemy,  the  rust  that 
doth  corrupt.  All  of  them  are  useful  in  their  several 
ways.  No  one  of  them  is  best  for  all  purposes.  The 
claim  of  **  rust-proof '*  is  no  more  to  be  taken  seriously 
than  ** fire-proof/'  We  should  rather,  if  we  were 
finical,  have  to  speak  of  *' rust-resisting"  coatings  as 
we  do  of  **  slow-burning"  buildings.  Nature  is  in- 
sidious and  unceasing  in  her  efforts  to  bring  to  ruin 
the  achievements  of  mankind  and  we  need  all  the 
weapons  we  can  find  to  frustrate  her  destructive  deter- 
mination. 

But  it  is  not  enough  for  us  to  make  iron  superficially 
resistant  to  rust  from  the  atmosphere.  We  should 
like  also  to  make  it  so  that  it  would  withstand  corro- 
sion by  acids,  then  it  could  be  used  in  place  of  the  large 
and  expensive  platinum  or  porcelain  evaporating  pans 
and  similar  utensils  employed  in  chemical  works.  This 
requirement  also  has  been  met  in  the  non-corrosive 
forms  of  iron,  which  have  come  into  use  within  the  last 
five  years.  One  of  these,  **tantiron,"  invented  by  a 
British  metallurgist,  Robert  N.  Lennox,  in  1912,  con- 


276  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

tains  15  per  cent,  of  silicon.  Similar  products  are 
known  as  *^duriron''  and  ''Buflokasf  in  America, 
**metilure''  in  France,  **ileanite'^  in  Italy  and  **neu- 
traleisen"  in  Germany.  It  is  a  silvery-white  close- 
grained  iron,  very  hard  and  rather  brittle,  somewhat 
like  cast  iron  but  with  silicon  as  the  main  additional 
ingredient  in  place  of  carbon.  It  is  difficult  to  cut  or 
drill  but  may  be  ground  into  shape  by  the  new  abra- 
sives. It  is  rustproof  and  is  not  attacked  by  sulfuric, 
nitric  or  acetic  acid,  hot  or  cold,  diluted  or  concen- 
trated. It  does  not  resist  so  well  hydrochloric  acid  or 
sulfur  dioxide  or  alkalies. 

The  value  of  iron  lies  in  its  versatility.  It  is  a  dozen 
metals  in  one.  It  can  be  made  hard  or  soft,  brittle  or 
malleable,  tough  or  weak,  resistant  or  flexible,  elastic 
or  pliant,  magnetic  or  non-magnetic,  more  or  less  con- 
ductive to  electricity,  by  slight  changes  of  composition 
or  mere  differences  of  treatment.  No  wonder  that  the 
medieval  mind  ascribed  these  mysterious  transforma- 
tions to  witchcraft.  But  the  modem  micrometallur- 
gist,  by  etching  the  surface  of  steel  and  photographing 
it,  shows  it  up  as  composite  as  a  block  of  granite.  He 
is  then  able  to  pick  out  its  component  minerals,  ferrite, 
austenite,  martensite,  pearlite,  graphite,  cementite,  and 
to  show  how  their  abundance,  shape  and  arrangement 
contribute  to  the  strength  or  weakness  of  the  specimen. 
The  last  of  these  constituents,  cementite,  is  a  definite 
chemical  compound,  an  iron  carbide,  FegC,  containing 
6.6  per  cent,  of  carbon,  so  hard  as  to  scratch  glass,  very 
brittle,  and  imparting  these  properties  to  hardened 
steel  and  cast  iron. 

With  this  knowledge  at  his  disposal  the  iron-maker 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW,  277 

can  work  with  his  eyes  open  and  so  regulate  his  melt 
as  to  cause  these  various  constituents  to  crystallize  out 
as  he  wants  them  to.  Besides,  he  is  no  longer  confined 
to  the  alloys  of  iron  and  carbon.  He  has  ransacked  the 
chemical  dictionary  to  find  new  elements  to  add  to  his 
alloys,  and  some  of  these  rarities  have  proved  to  pos- 
sess great  practical  value.  Vanadium,  for  instance, 
used  to  be  put  into  a  fine  print  paragraph  in  the  back  of 
the  chemistry  book,  where  the  class  did  not  get  to  it 
until  the  term  closed.  Yet  if  it  had  not  been  for  va- 
nadium steel  we  should  have  no  Ford  cars.  Tungsten, 
too,  was  relegated  to  the  rear,  and  if  the  student  re- 
membered it  at  all  it  was  because  it  bothered  him  to 
understand  why  its  symbol  should  be  W  instead  of  T. 
But  the  student  of  today  studies  his  lesson  in  the  light 
of  a  tungsten  wire  and  relieves  his  mind  by  listening  to 
a  phonograph  record  played  with  a  *Hungs-tone" 
stylus.  When  I  was  assistant  in  chemistry  an  *^  analy- 
sis" of  steel  consisted  merely  in  the  determination  of 
its  percentage  of  carbon,  and  I  used  to  take  Saturday 
for  it  so  I  could  have  time  enough  to  complete  the  com- 
bustion. Now  the  chemists  of  a  steel  works '  laboratory 
may  have  to  determine  also  the  tungsten,  chromium, 
vanadium,  titanium,  nickel,  cobalt,  phosphorus,  molyb- 
denum, manganese,  silicon  and  sulfur,  any  or  all  of 
them,  and  be  spry  about  it,  because  if  they  do  not  get 
the  report  out  within  fifteen  minutes  while  the  steel  is 
melting  in  the  electrical  furnace  the  whole  batch  of  75 
tons  may  go  wrong.  I  'm  glad  I  quit  the  laboratory 
before  they  got  to  speeding  up  chemists  so. 

The  quality  of  the  steel  depends  upon  the  presence 
and  the  relative  proportions  of  these  ingredients,  and 


278  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

a  variation  of  a  tenth  of  1  per  cent,  in  certain  of  them 
will  make  a  different  metal  out  of  it.  For  instance,  the 
steel  becomes  stronger  and  tougher  as  the  proportion 
of  nickel  is  increased  up  to  about  15  per  cent.  Raising 
the  percentage  to  25  we  get  an  alloy  that  does  not  rus^ 
or  corrode  and  is  non-magnetic,  although  both  its  com- 
ponent metals,  iron  and  nickel,  are  by  themselves  at- 
tracted by  the  magnet.  With  36  per  cent,  nickel  and 
5  per  cent,  manganese  we  get  the  alloy  known  as 
** invar,*'  because  it  expands  and  contracts  very  little 
with  changes  of  temperature.  A  bar  of  the  best  form 
of  invar  will  expand  less  than  one-millionth  part  of  its 
length  for  a  rise  of  one  degree  Centigrade  at  ordinary 
atmospheric  temperature.  For  this  reason  it  is  used 
in  watches  and  measuring  instruments.  The  alloy  of 
iron  with  46  per  cent,  nickel  is  called  **platinite"  be- 
cause its  rate  of  expansion  and  contraction  is  the  same 
as  platinum  and  glass,  and  so  it  can  be  used  to  replace 
the  platinum  wire  passing  through  the  glass  of  an 
electric  light  bulb. 

A  manganese  steel  of  11  to  14  per  cent,  is  too  hard  to 
be  machined.  It  has  to  be  cast  or  ground  into  shape 
and  is  used  for  burglar-proof  safes  and  armor  plate. 
Chrome  steel  is  also  hard  and  tough  and  finds  use  in 
files,  ball  bearings  and  projectiles.  Titanium,  which 
the  iron-maker  used  to  regard  as  his  implacable  enemy, 
has  been  drafted  into  service  as  a  deoxidizer,  increas- 
ing the  strength  and  elasticity  of  the  steel.  It  is  re- 
ported from  France  that  the  addition  of  three-tenths 
of  1  per  cent,  of  zirconium  to  nickel  steel  has  made  it 
more  resistant  to  the  German  perforating  bullets  than 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW,  279 

any  steel  hitherto  known.  The  new  *^ stainless"  cut- 
lery contains  12  to  14  per  cent,  of  chromium. 

With  the  introduction  of  harder  steels  came  the  need 
of  tougher  tools  to  work  them.  Now  the  virtue  of  a 
good  tool  steel  is  the  same  as  of  a  good  man.  It  must 
he  able  to  get  hot  without  losing  its  temper.  Steel  of 
the  old-fashioned  sort,  as  everybody  knows,  gets  its 
temper  by  being  heated  to  redness  and  suddenly  cooled 
by  quenching  or  plunging  it  into  water  or  oil.  But 
when  the  point  gets  heated  up  again,  as  it  does  by 
friction  in  a  lathe,  it  softens  and  loses  its  cutting  edge. 
So  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  tool  cool  limited  the 
speed  of  the  machine. 

But  about  1868  a  Sheffield  metallurgist,  Eobert  F. 
Mushet,  found  that  a  piece  of  steel  he  was  working 
wi-th  did  not  require  quenching  to  harden  it.  He  had 
it  analyzed  to  discover  the  meaning  of  this  peculiarity 
and  learned  that  it  contained  tungsten,  a  rare  metal 
unrecognized  in  the  metallurgy  of  that  day.  Further 
investigation  showed  that  steel  to  which  tungsten  and 
manganese  or  chromium  had  been  added  was  tougher 
and  retained  its  temper  at  high  temperature  better  than 
ordinary  carbon  steel.  Tools  made  from  it  could  be 
worked  up  to  a  white  heat  without  losing  their  cutting 
power.  The  new  tools  of  this  type  invented  by  ^*  Effi- 
ciency'' Taylor  at  the  Bethlehem  Steel  Works  in  the 
nineties  have  revolutionized  shop  practice  the  world 
over.  A  tool  of  the  old  sort  could  not  cut  at  a  rate 
faster  than  thirty  feet  a  minute  without  overheating, 
but  the  new  tungsten  tools  will  plow  through  steel  ten 
times  as  fast  and  can  cut  away  a  ton  of  the  material  in 


280  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

an  hour.  By  means  of  these  high-speed  tools  the 
United  States  was  able  to  turn  out  five  times  the  muni- 
tions that  it  could  otherwise  have  done  in  the  same 
time.  On  the  other  hand,  if  Germany  alone  had  pos- 
sessed the  secret  of  the  modem  steels  no  power  could 
have  withstood  her.  A  slight  superiority  in  metal- 
lurgy has  been  the  deciding  factor  in  many  a  battle. 
Those  of  my  readers  who  have  had  the  advantages  of 
Sunday  school  training  will  recall  the  case  described 
in  I  Samuel  13:19-22. 

By  means  of  these  new  metals  armor  plate  has  been 
made  invulnerable — except  to  projectiles  pointed  with 
similar  material.  Flying  has  been  made  possible 
through  engines  weighing  no  more  than  two  pounds 
per  horse  power.  The  cylinders  of  combustion  engines 
and  the  casing  of  cannon  have  been  made  to  withstand 
the  unprecedented  pressure  and  corrosive  action  of  the 
fiery  gases  evolved  within.  Castings  are  made  so  hard 
that  they  cannot  be  cut — save  with  tools  of  the  same 
sort.  In  the  high-speed  tools  now  used  20  or  30  per 
cent,  of  the  iron  is  displaced  by  other  ingredients ;  for 
example,  tungsten  from  14  to  25  per  cent.,  chromium 
from  2  to  7  per  cent.,  vanadium  from  %  to  1%  per  cent., 
carbon  from  .6  to  .8  per  cent.,  with  perhaps  cobalt  up  to 
4  per  cent.  Molybdenum  or  uranium  may  replace  part 
of  the  tungsten. 

Some  of  the  newer  alloys  for  high-speed  tools  con- 
tain no  iron  at  all.  That  which  bears  the  poetic  name 
of  star-stone,  stellite,  is  composed  of  chromium,  cobalt 
and  tungsten  in  varying  proportions.  Stellite  keeps  a 
hard  cutting  edge  and  gets  tougher  as  it  gets  hotter. 
It  is  very  hard  and  as  good  for  jewelry  as  platinum 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  281 

except  that  it  is  not  so  expensive.  Cooperite,  its  rival, 
is  an  alloy  of  nickel  and  zirconium,  stronger,  lighter 
and  cheaper  than  stellite. 

Before  the  war  nearly  half  of  the  world's  supply  of 
tungsten  ore  (wolframite)  came  from  Burma.  But 
although  Burma  had  belonged  to  the  British  for  a  hun- 
dred years  they  had  not  developed  its  mineral  resources 
and  the  tungsten  trade  was  monopolized  by  the  Ger- 
mans. All  the  ore  was  shipped  to  Grermany  and  the 
British  Admiralty  was  content  to  buy  from  the  Ger- 
mans what  tungsten  was  needed  for  armor  plate  and 
heavy  guns.  When  the  war  broke  out  the  British  had 
the  ore  supply,  but  were  unable  at  first  to  work  it  be- 
cause they  were  not  familiar  with  the  processes.  Ger- 
many, being  short  of  tungsten,  had  to  sneak  over  a  little 
from  Baltimore  in  the  submarine  Deutschland.  In  the 
United  States  before  the  war  tungsten  ore  was  selling 
at  $6.50  a  unit,  but  by  the  beginning  of  1916  it  had 
jumped  to  $85  a  unit.  A  unit  is  1  per  cent,  of  tungsten 
trioxide  to  the  ton,  that  is,  twenty  pounds.  Boulder 
County,  Colorado,  and  San  Bernardino,  California, 
then  had  mining  booms,  reminding  one  of  older  times. 
Between  May  and  December,  1918,  there  was  manufac- 
tured in  the  United  States  more  than  45,500,000  pounds 
of  tungsten  steel  containing  some  8,000,000  pounds  of 
tungsten. 

If  tungsten  ores  were  more  abundant  and  the  metal 
more  easily  manipulated,  it  would  displace  steel  for 
many  purposes.  It  is  harder  than  steel  or  even  quartz. 
It  never  rusts  and  is  insoluble  in  acids.  Its  expansion 
by  heat  is  one-third  that  of  iron.  It  is  more  than  twice 
as  heavy  as  iron  and  its  melting  point  is  twice  as  high. 


282  CEEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

Its  electrical  resistance  is  half  that  of  iron  and  its  ten- 
sile strength  is  a  third  greater  than  the  strongest  steel. 
It  can  be  worked  into  wire  .0002  of  an  inch  in  diameter, 
almost  too  thin  to  be  seen,  but  as  strong  as  copper  wire 
ten  times  the  size. 

The  tungsten  wires  in  the  electric  lamps  are  about 
.03  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  they  give  three  times 
the  light  for  the  same  consumption  of  electricity  as  the 
old  carbon  filament.  The  American  manufacturers  of 
the  tungsten  bulb  have  very  appropriately  named  their 
lamp  ** Mazda"  after  the  light  god  of  the  Zoroastrians. 
To  get  the  tungsten  into  wire  form  was  a  problem  that 
long  baffled  the  inventors  of  the  world,  for  it  was  too 
refractory  to  be  melted  in  mass  and  too  brittle  to  be 
drawn.  Dr.  W.  D.  Coolidge  succeeded  in  accomplish- 
ing the  feat  in  1912  by  reducing  the  tungstic  acid  by 
hydrogen  and  molding  the  metallic  powder  into  a  bar 
by  pressure.  This  is  raised  to  a  white  heat  in  the  elec- 
tric furnace,  taken  out  and  rolled  down,  and  the  process 
repeated  some  fifty  times,  until  the  wire  is  small  enough 
so  it  can  be  drawn  at  a  red  heat  through  diamond  dies 
of  successively  smaller  apertures. 

The  German  method  of  making  the  lamp  filaments  is 
to  squirt  a  mixture  of  tungsten  powder  and  thorium 
oxide  through  a  perforated  diamond  of  the  desired 
diameter.  The  filament  so  produced  is  drawn  through 
a  chamber  heated  to  2500°  C.  at  a  velocity  of  eight  feet 
an  hour,  which  crystallizes  the  tungsten  into  a  continu- 
ous thread. 

The  first  metallic  filament  used  in  the  electric  light 
on  a  commercial  scale  was  made  of  tantalum,  the  metal 
of  Tantalus.    In  the  period  1905-1911  over  100,000,000 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  283 

tantalus  lamps  were  sold,  but  tungsten  displaced  them 
as  soon  as  that  metal  could  be  drawn  into  wire. 

A  recent  rival  of  tungsten  both  as  a  filament  for 
lamps  and  hardener  for  steel  is  molybdenum.  One 
pound  of  this  metal  will  impart  more  resiliency  to  steel 
than  three  or  four  pounds  of  tungsten.  The  molybde- 
num steel,  because  it  does  not  easily  crack,  is  said  to  be 
serviceable  for  armor-piercing  shells,  gun  linings,  air- 
plane struts,  automobile  axles  and  propeller  shafts. 
In  combination  with  its  rival  as  a  tungsten-molybdenum 
alloy  it  is  capable  of  taking  the  place  of  the  intolerably 
expensive  platinum,  for  it  resists  corrosion  when  used 
for  spark  plugs  and  tooth  plugs.  European  steel  men 
have  taken  to  molybdenum  more  than  Americans.  The 
salts  of  this  metal  can  be  used  in  dyeing  and  photog- 
raphy. 

Calcium,  magnesium  and  aluminum,  common  enough 
in  their  compounds,  have  only  come  into  use  as  metals 
since  the  invention  of  the  electric  furnace.  Now  the 
photographer  uses  magnesium  powder  for  his  flashlight 
when  he  wants  to  take  a  picture  of  his  friends  inside 
the  house,  and  the  aviator  uses  it  when  he  wants  to  take 
a  picture  of  his  enemies  on  the  open  field.  The  flares 
prepared  by  our  Government  for  the  war  consist  of  a 
sheet  iron  cylinder,  four  feet  long  and  six  inches  thick, 
containing  a  stick  of  magnesium  attached  to  a  tightly 
rolled  silk  parachute  twenty  feet  in  diameter  when 
expanded.  The  whole  weighed  32  pounds.  On  being 
dropped  from  the  plane  by  pressing  a  button,  the  rush 
of  air  set  spinning  a  pinwheel  at  the  bottom  which 
ignited  the  magnesium  stick  and  detonated  a  charge  of 
black  powder  sufficient  to  throw  off  the  case  and  release 


284  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

the  parachute.  The  burning  flare  gave  off  a  light  of 
320,000  candle  power  lasting  for  ten  minutes  as  the 
parachute  slowly  descended.  This  illuminated  the 
ground  on  the  darkest  night  sufficiently  for  the  airman 
to  aim  his  bombs  or  to  take  photographs. 

The  addition  of  5  or  10  per  cent,  of  magnesium  to 
aluminum  gives  an  alloy  (magnalium)  that  is  almost 
as  ligh{  as  aluminum  and  almost  as  strong  as  steel. 
An  alloy  of  90  per  cent,  aluminum  and  10  per  cent, 
calcium  is  lighter  and  harder  than  aluminum  and  more 
resistant  to  corrosion.  The  latest  German  airplane, 
the  **  Junker,''  was  made  entirely  of  duralumin.  Even 
the  wings  were  formed  of  corrugated  sheets  of  this 
alloy  instead  of  the  usual  doped  cotton-cloth.  Duralu- 
min is  composed  of  about  85  per  cent,  of  aluminum,  5 
per  cent,  of  copper,  5  per  cent,  of  zinc  and  2  per  cent, 
of  tin. 

When  platinum  was  first  discovered  it  was  so  cheap 
that  ingots  of  it  were  gilded  and  sold  as  gold  bricks  to 
unwary  purchasers.  The  Russian  G-overnment  used  it 
as  we  use  nickel,  for  making  small  coins.  But  this  is  an 
exception  to  the  rule  that  the  demand  creates  the  sup- 
ply. Platinum  is  really  a  *  *  rare  metal, ' '  not  merely  an 
unfamiliar  one.  Nowhere  except  in  the  Urals  is  it 
found  in  quantity,  and  since  it  seems  indispensable  in 
chemical  and  electrical  appliances,  the  price  has  con- 
tinually gone  up.  Russia  collapsed  into  chaos  just 
when  the  war  work  made  the  heaviest  demand  for  plati- 
num, so  the  governments  had  to  put  a  stop  to  its  use  for 
jewelry  and  photography.  The  **gold  brick''  scheme 
would  now  have  to  be  reversed,  for  gold  is  used  as  a 
cheaper  metal  to  ** adulterate"  platinum.    All  the  mem- 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  285 

bers  of  the  platinum  family,  formerly  ignored,  were 
pressed  into  service,  palladium,  rhodium,  osmium,  irid- 
ium, and  these,  alloyed  with  gold  or  silver,  were  em- 
ployed more  or  less  satisfactorily  by  the  dentist,  chem- 
ist and  electrician  as  substitutes  for  the  platinum  of 
which  they  had  been  deprived.  One  of  these  alloys, 
composed  of  20  per  cent,  palladium  and  80  per  cent. 
gold,  and  bearing  the  telescoped  name  of  **palau*'  (pal- 
ladium au-rum)  makes  very  acceptable  crucibles  for  the 
laboratory  and  only  costs  half  as  much  as  platinum. 
**Rhotanium''  is  a  similar  alloy  recently  introduced. 
The  points  of  our  gold  pens  are  tipped  with  an  osmium- 
iridium  alloy.  It  is  a  pity  that  this  family  of  noble 
metals  is  so  restricted,  for  they  are  unsurpassed  in 
tenacity  and  incorruptibility.  They  could  be  of  great 
service  to  the  world  in  war  and  peace.  As  the  **Bad 
Child'*  says  in  his  *^Book  of  Beasts'': 

I  shoot  the  hippopotamus  with  bullete  made  of  platinum, 
Because  if  I  use  leaden  ones,  his  hide  is  sure  to  flatten  'em. 

Along  in  the  latter  half  of  the  last  century  chemists 
had  begun  to  perceive  certain  regularities  and  relation- 
ships among  the  various  elements,  so  they  conceived 
the  idea  that  some  sort  of  a  pigeon-hole  scheme  might 
be  devised  in  which  the  elements  could  be  filed  away  in 
the  order  of  their  atomic  weights  so  that  one  could  see 
just  how  a  certain  element,  known  or  unknown,  would 
behave  from  merely  observing  its  position  in  the  series. 
Mendeleef,  a  Russian  chemist,  devised  the  most  in- 
genious of  such  systems  called  the  ** periodic  law"  and 
gave  proof  that  there  was  something  in  his  theory  by 


286  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

predicting  the  properties  of  three  metallic  elements, 
then  unknown  but  for  which  his  arrangement  showed 
three  empty  pigeon-holes.  Sixteen  years  later  all  three 
of  these  predicted  elements  had  been  discovered,  one 
by  a  Frenchman,  one  by  a  G-erman  and  one  by  a  Scan- 
dinavian, and  named  from  patriotic  impulse,  gallium, 
germanium  and  scandium.  This  was  a  triumph  of  sci- 
entific prescience  as  striking  as  the  mathematical  proof 
of  the  existence  of  the  planet  Neptune  by  Leverrier 
before  it  had  been  found  by  the  telescope. 

But  although  Mendeleef's  law  told  **the  truth,"  it 
gradually  became  evident  that  it  did  not  tell  *  *  the  whole 
truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth,''  as  the  lawyers  put  it. 
As  usually  happens  in  the  history  of  science  the  hypoth- 
esis was  found  not  to  explain  things  so  simply  and 
completely  as  was  at  first  assumed.  The  anomalies  in 
the  arrangement  did  not  disappear  on  closer  study,  but 
stuck  out  more  conspicuously.  Though  Mendeleef  had 
pointed  out  three  missing  links,  he  had  failed  to  make 
provision  for  a  whole  group  of  elements  since  discov- 
ered, the  inert  gases  of  the  helium-argon  group.  As 
we  now  know,  the  scheme  was  built  upon  the  false  as- 
sumptions that  the  elements  are  inunutable  and  that 
their  atomic  weights  are  invariable. 

The  elements  that  the  chemists  had  most  difficulty  in 
sorting  out  and  identifying  were  the  heavy  metals 
found  in  the  *  *  rare  earths. ' '  There  were  about  twenty 
of  them  so  mixed  up  together  and  so  much  alike  as  to 
baffle  all  ordinary  means  of  separating  them.  For  a 
hundred  years  chemists  worked  over  them  and  quar- 
reled over  them  before  they  discovered  that  they  had 
a  commercial  value.    It  was  a  problem  as  remote  from 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  287 

practicality  as  any  that  could  be  conceived.  The  man 
in  the  street  did  not  see  why  chemists  should  care 
whether  there  were  two  didymiums  any  more  than  why 
theologians  should  care  whether  there  were  two  Isaiahs. 
But  all  of  a  sudden,  in  1885,  the  chemical  puzzle  became 
a  business  proposition.  The  rare  earths  became  house- 
hold utensils  and  it  made  a  big  difference  with  our 
monthly  gas  bills  whether  the  ceria  and  the  thoria  in 
the  burner  mantles  were  absolutely  pure  or  contained 
traces  of  some  of  the  other  elements  that  were  so  dif- 
ficult to  separate. 

This  sudden  change  of  venue  from  pure  to  applied 
science  came  about  through  a  Viennese  chemist.  Dr. 
Carl  Auer,  later  and  in  consequence  known  as  Baron 
Auer  von  Welsbach.  He  was  trying  to  sort  out  the 
rare  earths  by  means  of  the  spectroscopic  method, 
which  consists  ordinarily  in  dipping  a  platinum  wire 
into  a  solution  of  the  unknown  substance  and  holding 
it  in  a  colorless  gas  flame.  As  it  burns  off,  each  ele- 
ment gives  a  characteristic  color  to  the  flame,  which  is 
seen  as  a  series  of  lines  when  looked  at  through  the 
spectroscope.  But  the  flash  of  the  flame  from  the  plati- 
num wire  was  too  brief  to  be  studied,  so  Dr.  Auer  hit 
upon  the  plan  of  soaking  a  thread  in  the  liquid  and 
putting  this  in  the  gas  jet.  The  cotton  of  course 
burned  off  at  once,  but  the  earths  held  together  and 
when  heated  gave  off  a  brilliant  white  light,  very  much 
like  the  calcium  or  limelight  which  is  produced  by  heat- 
ing a  stick  of  quicklime  in  the  oxy-hydrogen  flame. 
But  these  rare  earths  do  not  require  any  such  intense 
heat  as  that,  for  they  will  glow  in  an  ordinary  gas  jet. 

So  the  Welsbach  mantle  burner  came  into  use  every- 


288  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

where  and  rescued  the  coal  gas  business  from  the  de- 
struction threatened  by  the  electric  light.  It  was  no 
longer  necessary  to  enrich  the  gas  with  oil  to  make  its 
flame  luminous,  for  a  cheaper  fuel  gas  such  as  is  used 
for  a  gas  stove  will  give,  with  a  mantle,  a  fine  white 
light  of  much  higher  candle  power  than  the  ordinary 
gas  jet.  The  mantles  are  knit  in  narrow  cylinders  on 
machines,  cut  off  at  suitable  lengths,  soaked  in  a  solu- 
tion of  the  salts  of  the  rare  earths  and  dried.  Artificial 
silk  (viscose)  has  been  found  better  than  cotton  thread 
for  the  mantles,  for  it  is  solid,  not  hollow,  more  uniform 
in  quality  and  continuous  instead  of  being  broken  up 
into  one-inch  fibers.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  difference 
in  the  quality  of  these  mantles,  as  every  one  who  has 
used  them  knows.  Some  that  give  a  bright  glow  at 
first  with  the  gas-cock  only  half  open  mil  soon  break 
up  or  grow  dull  and  require  more  gas  to  get  any  kind 
of  a  light  out  of  them.  Others  will  last  long  and  grow 
better  to  the  last.  Slight  impurities  in  the  earths  or 
the  gas  will  speedily  spoil  the  light.  The  best  results 
are  obtained  from  a  mixture  of  99  parts  thoria  and  1 
part  ceria.  It  is  the  ceria  that  gives  the  light,  yet  a 
little  more  of  it  will  lower  the  luminosity. 

The  non-chemical  reader  is  apt  to  be  confused  by  the 
strange  names  and  their  varied  terminations,  but  he 
need  not  be  when  he  learns  that  new  metals  are  given 
names  ending  in  -um,  such  as  sodium,  cerium,  thorium, 
and  that  their  oxides  (compounds  with  oxygen,  the 
earths)  are  given  the  termination  -a,  like  soda,  ceria, 
thoria.  So  when  he  sees  a  name  ending  in  -um  let  him 
picture  to  himself  a  metal,  any  metal  since  they  mostly 
look  alike,  lead  or  silver,  for  example.    And  when  he 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  289 

3omes  across  a  name  ending  in  -a  he  may  imagine  a 
svhite  powder  like  lime.  Thorium,  for  instance,  is,  as 
its  name  implies,  a  metal  named  after  the  thunder  god 
rhor,  to  whom  we  dedicate  one  day  in  each  week, 
Thursday.  Cerium  gets  its  name  from  the  Roman 
goddess  of  agriculture  by  way  of  the  asteroid. 

The  chief  sources  of  the  material  for  the  Welsbach 
turners  is  monazite,  a  glittering  yellow  sand  composed 
Df  phosphate  of  cerium  with  some  5  per  cent,  of  thor- 
ium. In  1916  the  United  States  imported  2,500,000 
Dounds  of  monazite  from  Brazil  and  India,  most  of 
vs^hich  used  to  go  to  Germany.  In  1895  we  got  over  a 
million  and  a  half  pounds  from  the  Carolinas,  but  the 
foreign  sand  is  richer  and  cheaper.  The  price  of  the 
salts  of  the  rare  metals  fluctuates  wildly.  In  1895  thor- 
ium nitrate  sold  at  $200  a  pound;  in  1913  it  feU  to  $2.60, 
and  in  1916  it  rose  to  $8. 

Since  the  monazite  contains  more  cerium  than  thor- 
ium  and  the  mantles  made  from  it  contain  more  thorium 
than  cerium,  there  is  a  superfluity  of  cerium.  The 
manufacturers  give  away  a  pound  of  cerium  salts  with 
every  purchase  of  a  hundred  pounds  of  thorium  salts. 
It  annoyed  Welsbach  to  see  the  cerium  residues  thrown 
away  and  accumulating  around  his  mantle  factory,  so 
he  set  out  to  find  some  use  for  it.  He  reduced  the 
mixed  earths  to  a  metallic  form  and  found  that  it  gave 
off  a  shower  of  sparks  when  scratched.  An  alloy  of 
cerium  with  30  or  35  per  cent,  of  iron  proved  the  best 
and  was  put  on  the  market  in  the  form  of  automatic 
lighters.  A  big  business  was  soon  built  up  in  Austria 
on  the  basis  of  this  obscure  chemical  element  rescued 
from  the  dump-heap.     The  sale  of  the  cerite  lighters 


290  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

in  France  threatened  to  upset  the  finances  of  the  re- 
public, which  derived  large  revenue  from  its  monopoly 
of  match-making,  so  the  French  Government  imposed  ai 
tax  upon  every  man  who  carried  one.  American  tour-^ 
ists  who  bought  these  lighters  in  Germany  used  to  be 
much  annoyed  at  being  held  up  on  the  French  frontier 
and  compelled  to  take  out  a  license.  During  the  war* 
the  cerium  sparklers  were  much  used  in  the  trenches 
for  lighting  cigarettes,  but — as  those  who  have  seen; 
**The  Better  'Ole'^  will  know — they  sometimes  fail  to 
strike  fire.  Auer-metal  or  cerium-iron  alloy  was  used! 
in  munitions  to  ignite  hand  grenades  and  to  blazon  the 
flight  of  trailer  shells.  There  are  many  other  pyro- 
phoric  (light-producing)  alloys,  including  steel,  which 
our  ancestors  used  with  flint  before  matches  and  per- 
cussion caps  were  invented. 

There  are  more  than  fifty  metals  known  and  not 
half  of  them  have  come  into  common  use,  so  there  is 
still  plenty  of  room  for  the  expansion  of  the  science  of 
metallurgy.  If  the  reader  has  not  forgotten  his  arith- 
metic of  permutations  he  can  calculate  how  many  dif- 
ferent alloys  may  be  formed  by  varying  the  combina- 
tions and  proportions  of  these  fifty.  We  have  seen 
how  quickly  elements  formerly  known  only  to  chem- 
ists— and  to  some  of  them  known  only  by  name — ^have 
become  indispensable  in  our  daily  life.  Any  one  of 
those  still  unutilized  may  be  found  to  have  peculiar 
properties  that  fit  it  for  filling  a  long  unfelt  want  iiii 
modem  civilization. 

Who,  for  instance,  will  find  a  use  for  gallium,  the 
metal  of  France?  It  was  described  in  1869  by  Men- 
deleef  in  advance  of  its  advent  and  has  been  known  in 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  291 

person  since  1875,  but  has  not  yet  been  set  to  work. 
It  is  such  a  remarkable  metal  that  it  must  be  good  for 
something.  If  you  saw  it  in  a  museum  case  on  a  cold 
day  you  might  take  it  to  be  a  piece  of  aluminum,  but  if 
the  curator  let  you  hold  it  in  your  hand — which  he 
won't — ^it  would  melt  and  run  over  the  floor  like  mer- 
cury. The  melting  point  is  87''  Fahr.  It  might  be 
used  in  thermometers  for  measuring  temperatures 
above  the  boiling  point  of  mercury  were  it  not  for  the 
peculiar  fact  that  gallium  wets  glass  so  it  sticks  to  the 
side  of  the  tube  instead  of  forming  a  clear  convex  curve 
on  top  like  mercury. 

Then  there  is  columbium,  the  American  metal.  It  is 
strange  that  an  element  named  after  Columbia  should 
prove  so  impractical.  Columbium  is  a  metal  closely 
resembling  tantalum  and  tantalum  found  a  use  as  elec- 
tric light  filaments.  A  columbium  l«amp  should  appeal 
to  our  patriotism. 

The  so-called  **rare  elements"  are  really  abundant 
enough  considering  the  earth 's  crust  as  a  whole,  though 
they  are  so  thinly  scattered  that  they  are  usually  over- 
looked and  hard  to  extract.  But  whenever  one  of  them 
is  found  valuable  it  is  soon  found  available.  A  sys- 
tematic search  generally  reveals  it  somewhere  in  suffi- 
cient quantity  to  be  worked.  Who,  then,  will  be  the 
first  to  discover  a  use  for  indium,  germanium,  terbium, 
thulium,  lanthanum,  neodymium,  scandium,  samarium 
and  others  as  unknown  to  us  as  tungsten  was  to  our 
fathers? 

As  evidence  of  the  statement  that  it  does  not  matter 
how  rare  an  element  may  be  it  will  come  into  common 
use  if  it  is  found  to  be  commonly  useful,  we  may  refer 


292  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


.1 


to  radium.  A  good  rich  specimen  of  radium  ore,  pitch- 
blende, may  contain  as  much  as  one  part  in  4,000,000. 
Madame  Curie,  the  brilliant  Polish  Parisian,  had  to 
work  for  years  before  she  could  prove  to  the  world  that 
such  an  element  existed  and  for  years  afterwards  be- 
fore she  could  get  the  metal  out.  Yet  now  we  can  all 
afford  a  bit  of  radium  to  light  up  our  watch  dials  in  the 
dark.  The  amount  needed  for  this  is  infinitesimal.  If 
it  were  more  it  would  scorch  our  skins,  for  radium  is  an 
element  in  eruption.  The  atom  throws  off  corpuscles 
at  intervals  as  a  Roman  candle  throws  off  blazing  balls. 
Some  of  these  particles,  the  alpha  rays,  are  atoms  of 
another  element,  helium,  charged  with  positive  elec- 
tricity and  are  ejected  with  a  velocity  of  18,000  miles 
a  second.  Some  of  them,  the  beta  rays,  are  negative 
electrons,  only  about  one  seven-thousandth  the  size  of 
the  others,  but  are  ejected  with  almost  the  speed  of 
light,  186,000  miles  a  second.  If  one  of  the  alpha  pro- 
jectiles strikes  a  slice  of  zinc  sulfide  it  makes  a  splash 
of  light  big  enough  to  be  seen  with  a  microscope,  so  we 
can  now  follow  the  flight  of  a  single  atom.  The  lumi- 
nous watch  dials  consist  of  a  coating  of  zinc  sulfide 
under  continual  bombardment  by  the  radium  projec- 
tiles. Sir  William  Crookes  invented  this  radium  light 
apparatus  and  called  it  a  ^* spinthariscope,''  which  is 
Greek  for  ** spark-seer." 

Evidently  if  radium  is  so  wasteful  of  its  substance  it 
cannot  last  forever  nor  could  it  have  forever  existed. 
The  elements  then  are  not  necessarily  eternal  and  im- 
mutable, as  used  to  be  supposed.  They  have  a  natural 
length  of  life ;  they  are  born  and  die  and  propagate,  at 
least  some  of  them  do.    Radium,  for  instance,  is  the 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  293 

offspring  of  ionium,  which  is  the  great-great-grandson 
of  uranium,  the  heaviest  of  known  elements.  Putting 
this  chemical  genealogy  into  biblical  language  we  might 
say:  Uranium  lived  5,000,000,000  years  and  begot 
Uranium  XI,  which  lived  24.6  days  and  begot  Uranium 
X2,  which  lived  69  seconds  and  begot  Uranium  2, 
which  lived  2,000,000  years  and  begot  Ionium,  which 
lived  200,000  years  and  begot  Eadium,  which  lived  1850 
years  and  begot  Niton,  which  lived  3.85  days  and  begot 
Eadium  A,  which  lived  3  minutes  and  begot  Eadium 
B,  which  lived  26.8  minutes  and  begot  Eadium  C,  which 
lived  19.5  minutes  and  begot  Eadium  D,  which  lived  12 
years  and  begot  Eadium  E,  which  lived  5  days  and 
begot  Polonium,  which  lived  136  days  and  begot  Lead. 
The  figures  I  have  given  are  the  times  when  half  the 
parent  substance  has  gone  over  into  the  next  genera- 
tion. It  will  be  seen  that  the  chemist  is  even  more  lib- 
eral in  his  allowance  of  longevity  than  was  Moses  with 
the  patriarchs.  It  appears  from  the  above  that  half  of 
the  radium  in  any  given  specimen  will  be  transformed 
in  about  2000  years.  Half  x)f  what  is  left  will  disap- 
pear in  the  next  2000  years,  half  of  that  in  the  next 
2000  and  so  on.  The  reader  can  figure  out  for  himself 
when  it  will  all  be  gone.  He  will  then  have  the  answer 
to  the  old  Eleatic  conundrum  of  when  Achilles  will  over- 
take the  tortoise.  But  we  may  say  that  after  100,000 
years  there  would  not  be  left  any  radium  worth  men- 
tioning, or  in  other  words  practically  all  the  radium  now 
in  existence  is  younger  than  the  human  race.  The  lead 
that  is  found  in  uranium  and  has  presumably  descended 
from  uranium,  behaves  like  other  lead  but  is  lighter. 
Its  atomic  weight  is  only  206,  while  ordinary  lead 


294  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTEY 

weighs  207.  It  appears  then  that  the  same  chemical 
element  may  have  different  atomic  weights  according 
to  its  ancestry,  while  on  the  other  hand  different  chemi- 
cal elements  may  have  the  same  atomic  weight.  This 
would  have  seemed  shocking  heresy  to  the  chemists  of 
the  last  century,  who  prided  themselves  on  the  immu- 
tability of  the  elements  and  did  not  take  into  considera- 
tion their  past  life  or  heredity.  The  study  of  these- 
radioactive  elements  has  led  to  a  new  atomic  theory. 
I  suppose  most  of  us  in  our  youth  used  to  imagine  th|| 
atom  as  a  little  round  hard  ball,  but  now  it  is  conceived 
as  a  sort  of  solar  system  with  an  electropositive  nu- 
cleus acting  as  the  sun  and  negative  electrons  revolving 
around  it  like  the  planets.  The  number  of  free  posi- 
tive electrons  in  the  nucleus  varies  from  one  in  hydro- 
gen to  92  in  uranium.  This  leaves  room  for  92  possible 
elements  and  of  these  all  but  six  are  more  or  less  cer- 
tainly known  and  definitely  placed  in  the  scheme.  The 
atom  of  uranium,  weighing  238  times  the  atom  of  hy- 
drogen, is  the  heaviest  known  and  therefore  the  ulti- 
mate limit  of  the  elements,  though  it  is  possible  that 
elements  may  be  found  beyond  it  just  as  the  planet 
Neptune  was  discovered  outside  the  orbit  of  Uranus. 
Considering  the  position  of  uranium  and  its  numerous 
progeny  as  mentioned  above,  it  is  quite  appropriate 
that  this  element  should  bear  the  name  of  the  father  of 
all  the  gods. 

In  these  radioactive  elements  we  have  come  upon 
sources  of  energy  such  as  was  never  dreamed  of  in  our 
philosophy.  The  most  striking  peculiarity  of  radium 
is  that  it  is  always  a  little  warmer  than  its  surround- 
ings, no  matter  how  warm  these  may  be.    Slowly, 


METALS,  OLD  AND  NEW  295 

spontaneously  and  continuously,  it  decomposes  and  we 
kaow  no  way  of  hastening  or  of  checking  it.  "Whether 
it  is  cooled  in  liquefied  air  or  heated  to  its  melting 
point  the  change  goes  on  just  the  same.  An  ounce  of 
radium  salt  will  give  out  enough  heat  in  one  hour  to 
melt  an  ounce  of  ice  and  in  the  next  hour  will  raise  this 
water  to  the  boiling  point,  and  so  on  again  and  again 
without  cessation  for  years,  a  fire  without  fuel,  a  real- 
ization of  the  philosopher's  lamp  that  the  alchemists 
sought  in  vain.  The  total  energy  so  emitted  is  mil- 
lions of  times  greater  than  that  produced  by  any  chemi- 
cal combination  such  as  the  union  of  oxygen  and  hy- 
drogen to  form  water.  From  the  heavy  white  salt 
there  is  continually  rising  a  faint  fire-mist  like  the 
will-o'-the-wisp  over  a  swamp.  This  gas  is  known  as 
the  emanation  or  niton,  **the  shining  one."  A  pound 
of  niton  would  give  off  energy  at  the  rate  of  23,000 
horsepower;  fine  stuff  to  run  a  steamer,  one  would 
think,  but  we  must  remember  that  it  does  not  last.  By 
the  sixth  day  the  power  would  have  fallen  off  by  half. 
Besides,  no  one  would  dare  to  serve  as  engineer,  for  the 
radiation  will  rot  away  the  flesh  of  a  living  man  who 
comes  near  it,  causing  gnawing  ulcers  or  curing  them. 
It  will  not  only  break  down  the  complex  and  delicate 
molecules  of  organic  matter  but  will  attack  the  atom  it- 
self, changing,  it  is  believed,  one  element  into  another, 
again  the  fulfilment  of  a  dream  of  the  alchemists.  And 
its  rays,  unseen  and  unf  elt  by  us,  are  yet  strong  enough 
to  penetrate  an  armorplate  and  photograph  what  is 
behind  it. 

But  radium  is  not  the  most  mysterious  of  the  ele- 
ments but  the  least  so.    It  is  giving  out  the  secret  that 


296  CKEATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

the  other  elements  have  kept.  It  suggests  to  us  that 
all  the  other  elements  in  proportion  to  their  weight  have 
concealed  within  them  similar  stores  of  energy.  As- 
tronomers have  long  dazzled  our  imaginations  by  calcu- 
lating the  horsepower  of  the  world,  making  us  feel 
cheap  in  talking  about  our  steam  engines  and  dynamos 
when  a  minutest  fraction  of  the  waste  dynamic  energy 
of  the  solar  system  would  make  us  all  as  rich  as  mil- 
lionaires. But  the  heavenly  bodies  are  too  big  for  us 
to  utilize  in  this  practical  fashion. 

And  now  the  chemists  have  become  as  exasperating 
as  the  astronomers,  for  they  give  us  a  glimpse  of  incal- 
culable wealth  in  the  meanest  substance.  For  wealth 
is  measured  by  the  available  energy  of  the  world,  and 
if  a  few  ounces  of  anything  would  drive  an  engine  or 
manufacture  nitrogenous  fertilizer  from  the  air  all  our 
troubles  would  be  over.  Kipling  in  his  sketch,  **With 
the  Night  Mail,''  and  Wells  in  his  novel,  ''The  World 
Set  Free,"  stretched  their  imaginations  in  tr^dng  to 
tell  us  what  it  would  mean  to  have  command  of  this 
power,  but  they  are  a  little  hazy  in  their  descriptions 
of  the  machinery  by  which  it  is  utilized.  The  atom  is 
as  much  beyond  our  reach  as  the  moon.  We  cannot  rob 
its  vault  of  the  treasure. 


BEADING  EEFEEENCES 

The  foregoing  pages  will  not  have  achieved  their  aim  un- 
less their  readers  have  become  sufficiently  interested  in  the 
developments  of  industrial  chemistry  to  desire  to  pursue  the 
subject  further  in  some  of  its  branches.  Assuming  such  in- 
terest has  been  aroused,  I  am  giving  below  a  few  references  to 
books  and  articles  which  may  serve  to  set  the  reader  upon  the 
right  track  for  additional  information.  To  follow  the  rapid 
progress  of  applied  science  it  is  necessary  to  read  continu- 
ously such  periodicals  as  the  Journal  of  Industrial  and  Engi- 
neering Chemistry  (New  York),  Metallurgical  and  Chemical 
Engineering  (New  York),  Journal  of  the  Society  of  Chemi- 
cal Industry  (London),  Chemical  Abstracts  (published  by 
the  American  Chemical  Society,  Easton,  Pa.),  and  the  vari- 
ous journals  devoted  to  special  trades.  The  reader  may  need 
to  be  reminded  that  the  United  States  Government  publishes 
for  free  distribution  or  at  low  price  annual  volumes  or  spe- 
cial reports  dealing  with  science  and  industry.  Among  these 
may  be  mentioned  ^'Yearbook  of  the  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture^'; "Mineral  Resources  of  the  United  States,"  published 
by  the  United  States  Geological  Survey  in  two  annual  vol- 
umes, Vol.  I  on  the  metals  and  Vol.  II  on  the  non-metals; 
the  "Annual  Report  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,"  con- 
taining selected  articles  on  pure  and  applied  science;  the 
daily  "Commerce  Reports"  and  special  bulletins  of  Depart- 
ment of  Commerce.  Write  for  lists  of  publications  of  these 
departments. 

The  following  books  on  industrial  chemistry  in  general  are 

recommended  for  reading  and  reference :    *  *  The  Chemistry  of 

Commerce"  and  "Some  Chemical  Problems  of  To-Day"  by 

297 


298  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

Robert  Kennedy  Duncan  (Harpers,  N.  Y.),  ** Modern  Chem- 
istry and  Its  Wonders'*  by  Martin  (Van  Nostrand),  ** Chem- 
ical Discovery  and  Invention  in  the  Twentieth  Century"  by 
Sir  William  A.  Tilden  (Dutton,  N.  Y.),  "Discoveries  and  In- 
ventions of  the  Twentieth  Century"  by  Edward  Cressy  (Dut- 
ton), "Industrial  Chemistry"  by  Allen  Rogers  (Van  Nos- 
trand) . 

"Everyman's  Chemistry"  by  Ell  wood  Hendrick  (Harpers, 
Modem  Science  Series)  is  written  in  a  lively  style  and  as- 
sumes no  previous  knowledge  of  chemistry  from  the  reader. 
The  chapters  on  cellulose,  gums,  sugars  and  oils  are  particu- 
larly interesting.  "Chemistry  of  Familiar  Things"  by  S.  S. 
Sadtler  (Lippincott)  is  both  comprehensive  and  compre- 
hensible. 

The  following  are  intended  for  young  readers  but  are  not 
to  be  despised  by  their  elders  who  may  wish  to  start  in  on  an 
easy  up-grade:  "Chemistry  of  Common  Things"  (Allyn  & 
Bacon,  Boston)  is  a  popular  high  school  text-book  but  differ- 
ing from  most  text-books  in  being  readable  and  attractive. 
Its  descriptions  of  industrial  processes  are  brief  but  clear. 
The  "Achievements  of  Chemical  Science"  by  James  C.  Philip 
(Macmillan)  is  a  handy  little  book,  easy  reading  for  pupils. 
"Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Science"  by  W.  P.  Smith  and 
E.  G.  Jewett  (Macmillan)  touches  upon  chemical  topics  in  a 
simple  way. 

On  the  history  of  commerce  and  the  effect  of  inventions  on 
society  the  following  titles  may  be  suggested:  "Outlines  of 
Industrial  History"  by  E.  Cressy  (Macmillan)  ;  "The  Origin 
of  Invention,"  a  study  of  primitive  industry,  by  0.  T.  Mason 
(Scribner) ;  "The  Romance  of  Commerce"  by  Gordon  Sel- 
bridge  (Lane) ;  "Industrial  and  Commercial  Geography"  or 
"Commerce  and  Industry"  by  J.  RusseU  Smith  (Holt); 
"Handbook  of  Commercial  Geography"  by  G.  G.  Chisholm 
(Longmans). 

The  newer  theories  of  chemistry  and  the  constitution  of  the 


READING  REFERENCES  299 

atom  are  explained  in  **The  Realities  of  Modern  Science"  by 
John  Mills  (Macmillan),  and  ''The  Electron"  by  R.  A.  Milli- 
kan  (University  of  Chicago  Press),  but  both  require  a  knowl- 
edge of  mathematics.  The  little  book  on  "Matter  and 
Energy"  by  Frederick  Soddy  (Holt)  is  better  adapted  to  the 
general  reader.  The  most  recent  text-book  is  the  "Introduc- 
tion to  General  Chemistry"  by  H.  N.  McCoy  and  E.  M.  Terry. 
(Chicago,  1919.) 

CHAPTER   n 

The  reader  who  may  be  interested  in  following  up  this  sub- 
ject will  find  references  to  all  the  literature  in  the  summary 
by  Helen  R.  Hosmer,  of  the  Research  Laboratory  of  the  Gen- 
eral Electric  Company,  in  the  Journal  of  Industrial  and  Engi- 
neering Chemistry,  New  York,  for  April,  1917.  Bucher's  pa- 
per may  be  found  in  the  same  journal  for  March,  and  the  issue 
for  September  contains  a  full  report  of  the  action  of  U.  S. 
Government  and  a  comparison  of  the  various  processes.  Send 
fifteen  cents  to  the  U.  S.  Department  of  Commerce  (or  to  the 
nearest  custom  house)  for  Bulletin  No.  52,  Special  Agents 
Series  on  "Utilization  of  Atmospheric  Nitrogen^'  by  T.  H. 
Norton.  The  Smithsonian  Institution  of  Washington  has  is- 
sued a  pamphlet  on  "Sources  of  Nitrogen  Compounds  in  the 
United  States."  In  the  1913  report  of  the  Smithsonian  Insti- 
tution there  are  two  fine  articles  on  this  subject :  "The  Manu- 
facture of  Nitrates  from  the  Atmosphere"  and  "The  Distri- 
bution of  Mankind,"  which  discusses  Sir  William  Crookes' 
prediction  of  the  exhaustion  of  wheat  land.  The  D.  Van  Nos- 
trand  Co.,  New  York,  publishes  a  monograph  on  "Fixation  of 
Atmospheric  Nitrogen"  by  J.  Knox,  also  "TNT  and  Other 
Nitrotoluenes"  by  G.  C.  Smith.  The  American  Cyanamid 
Company,  New  York,  gives  out  some  attractive  literature  on 
their  process. 

"American  Munitions  1917-1918,"  the  report  of  Benedict 
Crowell,  Director  of  Munitions,  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  gives 


300  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

a  fully  illustrated  account  of  the  manufacture  of  arms,  ex- 
plosives and  toxic  gases.  Our  war  experience  in  the  * '  Oxida- 
tion of  Ammonia''  is  told  by  C.  L.  Parsons  in  Journal  of  In- 
dustrial and  Engineering  Chemistry,  June,  1919,  and  various 
other  articles  on  the  government  munition  work  appeared  in 
the  same  journal  in  the  first  half  of  1919.  ''The  Muscle 
Shoals  Nitrate  Plant"  in  Chemical  and  Metallurgical  Engi- 
neering, January,  1919. 

CHAPTER  in 

The  Department  of  Agriculture  or  your  congressman  will 
send  you  literature  on  the  production  and  use  of  fertilizers. 
From  your  state  agricultural  experiment  station  you  can  pro- 
cure information  as  to  local  needs  and  products.  Consult  the 
articles  on  potash  salts  and  phosphate  rock  in  the  latest  vol- 
ume of  ''Mineral  Resources  of  the  United  States,"  Part  II 
Non-Metals  (published  free  by  the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey). 
Also  consult  the  latest  Yearbook  of  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture. For  self-instruction,  problems  and  experiments  get 
"Extension  Course  in  Soils,"  Bulletin  No.  355,  U.  S,  Dept, 
of  Agric.  A  list  of  all  government  publications  on  ' '  Soil  and 
Fertilizers"  is  sent  free  by  Superintendent  of  Documents, 
AVashington.  The  Journal  of  Industrial  and  Engineering 
Chemistry  for  July,  1917,  publishes  an  article  by  W.  C. 
Ebaugh  on  "Potash  and  a  World  Emergency,"  and  various 
articles  on  American  sources  of  potash  appeared  in  the  same 
Journal  October,  1918,  and  February,  1918.  Bulletin  102, 
Part  2,  of  the  United  States  National  Museum  contains  an 
interpretation  of  the  fertilizer  situation  in  1917  by  J.  E. 
Poque.  On  new  potash  deposits  in  Alsace  and  elsewhere  see 
Scientific  American  Supplement,  September  14,  1918. 

CHAPTER  IV 

Send  ten  cents  to  the  Department  of  Commerce,  "Washing- 
ton, for  "Dyestuffs  for  American  Textile  and  Other  Indus- 


BEADING  REFERENCES  301 

tries/'  by  Thomas  H.  Norton,  Special  Agents'  Series,  No.  96. 
A  more  technical  bulletin  by  the  same  author  is  **  Artificial 
Dyestuffs  Used  in  the  United  States,"  Special  Agents'  Series, 
No.  121,  thirty  cents.  '^Dyestuff  Situation  in  U.  S.,"  Special 
Agents'  Series,  No.  Ill,  five  cents.  ** Coal-Tar  Products,"  by 
H.  G.  Porter,  Technical  Paper  89,  Bureau  of  Mines,  Depart- 
ment of  the  Interior,  five  cents.  ''Wealth  in  Waste,"  by 
Waldemar  Kaempfert,  McClure's,  April,  1917.  **The  Evo- 
lution of  Artificial  Dyestuffs,"  by  Thomas  H.  Norton,  Scien- 
tific American f  July  21,  1917.  "Germany's  Commercial  Pre- 
paredness for  Peace,"  by  James  Armstrong,  Scientific  Ameri- 
can, January  29,  1916.  ''The  Conquest  of  Commerce"  and 
"American  Made,"  by  Edwin  E.  Slosson  in  The  Independent 
of  September  6  and  October  11,  1915.  The  H.  Koppers  Com- 
pany, Pittsburgh,  give  out  an  illustrated  pamphlet  on  their 
"By-Product  Coke  and  Gas  Ovens."  The  addresses  delivered 
during  the  war  on  ' '  The  Aniline  Color,  Dyestuff  and  Chemical 
Conditions,"  by  I.  P.  Stone,  president  of  the  National  Aniline 
and  Chemical  Company,  have  been  collected  in  a  volume  by 
the  author.  For  "Dyestuffs  as  Medicinal  AgeAts"  by  G. 
Heyl,  see  Color  Trade  Journal,  vol.  4,  p.  73,  1919.  "The 
Chemistry  of  Synthetic  Drugs"  by  Percy  May,  and  "Color 
in  Relation  to  Chemical  Constitution"  by  E.  R.  Watson  are 
published  in  Longmans'  "Monographs  on  Industrial  Chem- 
istry." "Enemy  Property  in  the  United  States"  by  A. 
Mitchell  Palmer  in  Saturday  Evening  Post,  July  19,  1919, 
tells  of  how  Germany  monopolized  chemical  industry.  "The 
Carbonization  of  Coal"  by  V.  B.  Lewis  (Van  Nostrand,  1912). 
"Research  in  the  Tar  Dye  Industry"  by  B.  C.  Hesse  in  Jour- 
nal of  Industrial  and  Engineering  Chemistry,  September, 
1916. 

Kekule  tells  how  he  discovered  the  constitution  of  benzene 
in  the  Berichte  der  Deutschen  chemischen  Gesellschaft, 
V.  XXIII,  I,  p.  1306.  I  have  quoted  it  with  some  other  in- 
stances of  dream  discoveries  in  The  Independent  of  Jan.  26, 


302  CREATWE  CHEMISTEY 

1918.  Even  this  innocent  scientific  vision  has  not  escaped 
the  foul  touch  of  the  Freudians.  Dr.  Alfred  Robitsek  in 
*  *  Symbolisches  Denken  in  der  chemischen  Forschung, ' '  Imago, 
V.  I,  p.  83,  has  deduced  from  it  that  Kekule  was  morally- 
guilty  of  the  crime  of  (Edipus  as  well  as  minor  misdemeanors. 

CHAPTER  V 

Read  up  on  the  methods  of  extracting  perfumes  from  flow- 
ers in  any  encyclopedia  or  in  Duncan's  ** Chemistry  of  Com- 
merce" or  Tilden's  '*  Chemical  Discovery  in  the  Twentieth 
Century'*  or  Rogers'  ''Industrial  Chemistry." 

The  pamphlet  containing  a  synopsis  of  the  lectures  by  the 
late  Alois  von  Isakovics  on  ''Synthetic  Perfumes  and  Fla- 
vors, ' '  published  by  the  Synfleur  Scientific  Laboratories,  Mon- 
ticello,  New  York,  is  immensely  interesting.  Van  Dyk  &  Co., 
New  York,  issue  a  pamphlet  on  the  composition  of  oil  of  rose. 
Gildemeister's  "The  Volatile  Oils"  is  excellent  on  the  history 
of  the  subject.  Walter's  "Manual  for  the  Essence  Industry" 
(Wiley)  gives  methods  and  recipes.  Parry's  "Chemistry  of 
Essential  Oils  and  Artificial  Perfumes,"  1918  edition. 
"Chemistry  and  Odoriferous  Bodies  Since  1914"  by  G.  Satie 
in  Chemie  et  Industrie,  vol.  II,  p.  271,  393.  "Odor  and 
Chemical  Constitution,"  Chemical  Abstracts,  1917,  p.  3171, 
and  Journal  of  Society  for  Chemical  Industry,  v.  36,  p.  942. 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  bulletin  on  "By-Products  of  the  Lumber  Industry"  by 
H.  K.  Benson  (published  by  Department  of  Commerce,  Wash- 
ington, 10  cents)  contains  a  description  of  paper-making  and 
wood  distillation.  There  is  a  good  article  on  cellulose  prod- 
ucts by  H.  S.  Mork  in  Journal  of  the  Franklin  Institute,  Sep- 
tember, 1917,  and  in  Paper,  September  26,  1917.  The  Gov- 
/ernment  Forest  Products  Laboratory  at  IMadison,  Wisconsin, 
ipublishes  technical  papers  on  distillation  of  wood,  etc.  The 
iPorest  Bmndce  of  the  U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture  is  the 


EEADING  REFERENCES  303 

chief  source  of  information  on  forestry.  The  standard  author- 
ity is  Cross  and  Bevans'  ''Cellulose/'  For  the  acetates  see 
the  eighth  volume  of  Worden's  ''Technology  of  the  Cellulose 
Esters/' 

CHAPTER    Vn 

The  speeches  made  when  Hyatt  was  awarded  the  Perkin 
medal  by  the  American  Chemical  Society  for  the  discovery  of 
celluloid  may  be  found  in  the  Journal  of  the  Society  of  Chem- 
ical Industry  for  1914,  p.  225,  In  1916  Baekeland  received 
the  same  medal,  and  the  proceedings  are  reported  in  the  same 
Jo^irnal,  v.  35,  p.  285. 

A  comprehensive  technical  paper  with  bibliography  on 
"Synthetic  Resins"  by  L.  Y.  Redman  appeared  in  the  Jaurnul 
of  Industrial  and  Engineering  Chemistry,  January,  1914. 
The  controversy  over  patent  rights  may  be  followed  in  the 
same  Jouriial,  v.  8  (1915),  p.  1171,  and  v.  9  (1916),  p.  2QT. 
The  "Effects  of  Heat  on  Celluloid"  have  been  examined  by 
the  Bureau  of  Standards,  Washington  (Technological  Paper 
No.  98 ) ,  abstract  in  Scientific  American  Supplement,  June  29, 
1918. 

For  casein  see  Tague's  article  in  Rogers'  "Industrial  Chem- 
istry" (Van  Nostrand).  See  also  Worden's  "Nitrocellulose 
Industry"  and  "Technology  of  the  Cellulose  Esters"  (Van 
Nostrand);  Hodgson's  "Celluloid"  and  Cross  and  Bevan's 
"Cellulose." 

For  references  to  recent  research  and  new  patent  specifica- 
tions on  artificial  plastics,  resins,  rubber,  leather,  wood,  etc., 
see  the  current  numbers  of  Chemical  Abstracts  (Easton,  Pa.) 
and  such  journals  as  the  India  Rubber  Journal,  Paper,  Tex- 
tile World,  Leather  World  and  Journal  of  American  Leather 
Chemical  Association. 

The  General  Bakelite  Company,  New  York,  the  Redmanol 
Products  Company,  Chicago,  the  Condensite  Company,  Bloom- 
field,  N.  J.,  the  Arlington  Company,  New  York  (handling 


304  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

pyralin),  give  out  advertising  literature  regarding  their  re. 
spective  products. 

CHAPTER   VIII 

Sir  William  Tilden's  ''Chemical  Discovery  and  Invention 
in  the  Twentieth  Century"  (E,  P.  Button  &  Co.)  contains  a 
readable  chapter  on  rubber  with  references  to  his  own  dis- 
covery. The  "Wonder  Book  of  Rubber,"  issued  by  the  B.  F. 
Goodrich  Rubber  Company,  Akron,  Ohio,  gives  an  interesting 
account  of  their  industry.  lies:  "Leading  American  In- 
ventors" (Henry  Holt  &  Co.)  contains  a  life  of  Goodyear, 
the  discoverer  of  vulcanization.  Potts:  "Chemistry  of  the 
Rubber  Industry,  1912."  The  Rubber  Industry:  Report  of 
the  International  Rubber  Congress,  1914.  Pond:  "Review  of 
Pioneer  Work  in  Rubber  Synthesis"  in  Journal  of  the  Ameri- 
can Chemical  Society ,  1914.  King:  "Synthetic  Rubber"  in 
Metallurgical  and  Chemical  Engineering,  May  1,  1917.  Cas- 
tellan: "L 'Industrie  caoutchouciere, "  doctor's  thesis.  Univer- 
sity of  Paris,  1915.  The  India  Rubber  World,  New  York,  all 
numbers,  especially  "What  I  Saw  in  the  Philippines,"  by  the 
Editor,  1917.  Pearson:  "Production  of  Guayule  Rubber," 
Commerce  Reports,  1918,  and  India  Rubber  World,  1919. 
"Historical  Sketch  of  Chemistry  of  Rubber"  by  S.  C.  Brad- 
ford in  Science  Progress,  v.  II,  p.  1. 

CHAPTER  IX 

"The  Cane  Sugar  Industry"  (Bulletin  No.  53,  Miscellane- 
ous Series,  Department  of  Commerce,  50  cents)  gives  agricul- 
tural and  manufacturing  costs  in  Hawaii,  Porto  Rico,  Louisi- 
ana and  Cuba. 

"Sugar  and  Its  Value  as  Food,"  by  Mary  Hinman  Abel. 
(Farmer's  Bulletin  No.  535,  Department  of  Agriculture, 
free.)  S 

"Production  of  Sugar  in  the  United  States  and  Foreign' 


BEADING  REFERENCES  305 

Countries,"  by  Perry  Elliott.  (Department  of  Agriculture, 
10  cents.) 

"Conditions  in  the  Sugar  Market  January  to  October, 
1917, ' '  a  pamphlet  published  by  the  American  Sugar  Kefining 
Company,  117  Wall  Street,  New  York,  gives  an  admirable  sur- 
vey of  the  present  situation  as  seen  by  the  refiners. 

"Cuban  Cane  Sugar,"  by  Robert  Wiles,  1916  (Indian- 
apolis:  Bobbs-Merrill  Co.,  75  cents),  an  attractive  little  book 
in  simple  language. 

"The  World's  Cane  Sugar  Industry,  Past  and  Present,"  by 
H.  C.  P.  Geering. 

"The  Story  of  Sugar,"  by  Prof.  G.  T.  Surface  of  Yale 
(Appleton,  1910).    A  very  interesting  and  reliable  book. 

The  '* Digestibility  of  Glucose"  is  discussed  in  Journal  of 
Industrial  and  Engineering  Chemistry,  August,  1917. 
"Utilization  of  Beet  Molasses"  in  Metallurgical  and  Chemical 
Engineering,  April  5,  1917. 

CHAPTER   X 

** Maize,"  by  Edward  Alber  (Bulletin  of  the  Pan-American 
Union,  January,  1915). 

"Glucose,"  by  Geo.  W.  Rolfe  {Scientific  American  Supple- 
ment, May  15  or  November  6,  1915,  and  in  Roger's  "Indus- 
trial Chemistry"). 

On  making  ethyl  alcohol  from  wood,  see  Bulletin  No.  110, 
Special  Agents'  Series,  Department  of  Commerce  (10  cents), 
and  an  article  by  F.  W.  Kressmann  in  Metallurgical  and  Chem- 
ical  Engineering,  July  15,  1916.  On  the  manufacture  and 
uses  of  industrial  alcohol  the  Department  of  Agriculture  has 
issued  for  free  distribution  Farmer's  Bulletin  269  and  424, 
and  Department  Bulletin  182. 

On  the  "Utilization  of  Corn  Cobs,"  see  Journal  of  Indus- 
trial and  Engineering  Chemistry,  Nov.,  1918.  For  John  Win- 
throp's  experiment,  see  the  same  Journal,  Jan.,  1919. 


306  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 

CHAPTER  XI 

President  Scherer's  ''Cotton  as  a  World  Power"  (Stokes 
1916)  is  a  fascinating  volume  that  combines  the  history,  sci- 
ence and  politics  of  the  plant  and  does  not  ignore  the  poetry 
and  legend. 

In  the  Yearbook  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  for  1916 
will  be  found  an  interesting  article  by  H.  S.  Bailey  on  ' '  Some 
American  Vegetable  Oils"  (sold  separate  for  five  cents),  also 
*'The  Peanut:  A  Great  American  Food"  by  same  author  in 
the  Yearbook  of  1917.  ''The  Soy  Bean  Industry"  is  dis- 
jCussed  in  the  same  volume.  See  also:  Thompson's  "Cotton- 
seed Products  and  Their  Competitors  in  Northern  Europe" 
(Part  I,  Cake  and  Meal;  Part  II,  Edible  Oils.  Departmentt 
of  Commerce,  10  cents  each).  "Production  and  Conservation 
of  Fats  and  Oils  in  the  United  States"  (Bulletin  No.  769, 1919, 
U.  S.  Dept.  of  Agriculture).  "Cottonseed  Meal  for  Feeding 
Cattle"  (U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture,  Farmer's  Bulletin 
655,  free).  "Cottonseed  Industry  in  Foreign  Countries,"  by 
T.  H.  Norton,  1915  (Department  of  Commerce,  10  cents). 
"Cottonseed  Products"  in  Journal  of  the  Society  of  Chemical 
Industry,  July  16,  1917,  and  Baskerville 's  article  in  the  same 
journal  (1915,  vol.  7,  p.  277).  Dunstan's  "Oil  Seeds  and 
Feeding  Cakes,"  a  volume  on  British  problems  since  the  war. 
Ellis's  "The  Hydrogenation  of  Oils"  (Van  Nostrand,  1914). 
Copeland's  "The  Coconut"  (Macmillan).  Barrett's  "The 
Philippine  Coconut  Industry"  (Bulletin  No.  25,  Philippine 
Bureau  of  Agriculture).  "Coconuts,  the  Consols  of  the 
East"  by  Smith  and  Pope  (London).  "All  About  Coco- 
nuts" by  Belfort  and  Hoyer  (London).  Numerous  articles 
on  copra  and  other  oils  appear  in  U.  S.  Commerce  Reports  and 
Philippine  Journal  of  Science.  "The  World  Wide  Search 
for  Oils"  in  The  Americas  (National  City  Bank,  N.  Y.). 
"Modem  Margarine  Technology"  by  W.  Clayton  in  Journal 
Society  of  Chemical  Industry,  Dec.  5,  1917 ;  also  see  Scientific 


READING  REFERENCES  307 

American  Supplement,  Sept.  21,  1918.  A  court  decision  on 
the  patent  rights  of  hydrogenation  is  given  in  Journal  of  In- 
dusttial  and  Engineering  Chemistry  for  December.  1917. 
The  standard  work  on  the  whole  subject  is  Lewkowitsch 's 
"Chemical  Technology  of  Oils,  Fats  and  Waxes'*  (3  vols., 
Macmillan,  1915). 

CHAPTER  xn 

A  full  account  of  the  development  of  the  American  Warfare 
Service  has  been  published  in  the  Journal  of  Industrial  and 
Engineering  Chemistry  in  the  monthly  issues  from  January 
to  August,  1919,  and  an  article  on  the  British  service  in  the 
issue  of  April,  1918.  See  also  Crowell's  Report  on  ** Ameri- 
ca's Munitions,''  published  by  War  Department.  Scientific 
American,  March  29,  1919,  contains  several  articles.  A.  Rus- 
sell Bond's  "Inventions  of  the  Great  War"  (Century)  con- 
tains chapters  on  poison  gas  and  explosives. 

Lieutenant  Colonel  S.  J.  M.  Auld,  Chief  Gas  Officer  of  Sir 
Julian  Byng's  army  and  a  member  of  the  British  Military 
Mission  to  the  United  States,  has  published  a  volume  on  "Gas 
and  Flame  in  Modem  Warfare"  (George  H.  Doran  Co.). 

CHAPTER  xm 

See  chapter  in  Cressy's  "Discoveries  and  Inventions  of 
Twentieth  Century."  " Oxy-Acetylene  Welders,"  Bulletin 
No.  11,  Federal  Board  of  Vocational  Education,  Washington, 
June,  1918,  gives  practical  directions  for  welding.  Reactions, 
a  quarterly  published  by  Goldschmidt  Thermit  Company, 
N.  Y.,  reports  latest  achievements  of  aluminothermics.  Pro- 
vost Smith's  "Chemistry  in  America"  (Appleton)  tells  of  the 
experiments  of  Robert  Hare  and  other  pioneers.  "Applica- 
tions of  Electrolysis  in  Chemical  Industry"  by  A.  F.  Hall 
(Longmans),  For  recent  work  on  artificial  diamonds  see 
Scientific  American  Supplement,  Dec.  8,  1917,  and  August  24, 
1918.  On  acetylene  see  "A  Storehouse  of  Sleeping  Energy" 
by  J.  M.  Morehead  in  Scientific  American,  January  27,  1917. 


308  CREATIVE  CHEMISTRY 


CHAPTER   XIV 


I 


Spring's  ' '  Non-Teclmical  Talks  on  Iron  and  Steel 
(Stokes)  is  a  model  of  popular  science  writing,  clear,  com- 
prehensive and  abundantly  illustrated.  Tilden's  "Chemical 
Discovery  in  the  Twentieth  Century"  must  here  again  be  re- 
ferred to.  The  Encyclopedia  Britannica  is  convenient  for 
reference  on  the  various  metals  mentioned;  see  the  article  on 
** Lighting"  for  the  Welsbach  burner.  The  annual  "Mineral 
Resources  of  the  United  States,  Part  I,"  contains  articles  on 
the  newer  metals  by  Frank  W.  Hess;  see  "Tungsten"  in  the 
volume  for  1914,  also  Bulletin  No.  652,  U.  S.  Geological  Sur- 
vey, by  same  author.  Foote-Notes,  the  house  organ  of  the 
Foote  Mineral  Company,  Philadelphia,  gives  information  on 
the  rare  elements.  Interesting  advertising  literature  may  be 
obtained  from  the  Titantium  Alloy  Manufacturing  Company, 
Niagara  Falls,  N.  Y. ;  Duriron  Castings  Company,  Dayton,  0. ; 
Buffalo  Foundry  and  Machine  Company,  Buffalo,  N.  Y., 
manufacturers  of  "Buflokast"  acid-proof  apparatus,  and  simi- 
lar concerns.  The  following  additional  references  may  be 
useful:  Stellite  alloys  in  Jotir.  Ind.  &  Eng.  Chem.,  v.  9,  p. 
974;  Rossi's  work  on  titantium  in  same  journal,  Feb.,  1918; 
"Welsbach  mantles  in  Journal  Franklin  Institute,  v.  14,  p.  401, 
585 ;  pure  alloys  in  Trans.  Amer.  Electro-Chemical  Society,  v. 
32,  p.  269;  molybdenum  in  Engineering,  1917,  or  ScientifiG 
American  Supplement,  Oct.  20,  1917;  acid-resisting  iron  in 
Sc.  Amer.  Sup.,  May  31,  1919;  ferro-alloys  in  Jour.  Ind.  & 
Eng.  Chem.,  v.  10,  p.  831 :  influence  of  vanadium,  etc.,  on  iron, 
in  Met.  Chem.  Eng.,  v.  15,  p.  530 ;  tungsten  in  Engineering, 
V.  104,  p.  214. 


INDEX 


Abrasives,   249-251 

Acetanilid,  87 

Acetone,    125,   154,   243,   245 

Acetylene,   30,    154,   240-245,   257, 

307,   308 
Acheson,   249 
Air,  liquefied,   33 
Alcohol,  ethvl,  101,  102,  127,  174, 

190-194^,    242-244,    305 
methyl,  101,  102,  127,  191 
Aluminum,  31,  246-248,  255,  272, 

284 
Ammonia,  27,  29,  31,  33,   56,  64, 

250 
American  dye  industry,  82 
Aniline  dyes,  60-92 
Antiseptics,   86,   87 
Argon,    16 

Art  and  nature,  8,  9,  170,  173 
Artificial  silk,  116,  118,  119 
Aspirin,   84 

Atomic  theory,  293-296,  299 
Ayle&worth,  140 

Baekeland,    137 

Baever,  Adolf  von,  77 

Bakelite,   138,  303 

Balata,   159 

Bauxite,  31 

Beet  sugar,  165,  169,  305 

Benzene  formula,  67,  301,    101 

Berkeley,  61 

Berthelot,  7,  94 

Birkeland-Eyde   process,   26 

Bucher   process,   32 

Butter,  201,  208 

Calcium,  246,  253 

Calcium  carbide,  30,  339 

Camphor,    100,    131 

Cane    sugar,    164,    167,    177,    180, 

305 
Carbolic  acid,  18,  64,  84,  101,  102, 

137 
Carborundum,   249-251 
Caro  and  Tranke  process,  30 


Casein,   142 

Castner,  246 

Catalyst,  28,  204 

Celluloid,  128-135,  302 

Cellulose,    110-127,    129,    137,   302 

Cellulose  acetate,  118,  120,  302 

Cerium,    288-290 

Chemical  \varfare,  218-235,  307 

Chlorin,  224,  226,  250 

Chlorophyll,  267 

Chlorpicrin,  224,  226 

Chromicum,  278,  280 

Coal,    distillation    of,    60,    64,    70, 

84,  301 
Coal  tar  colors,  60-92 
Cochineal,    79 

Coconut  oil,  203,  211-215,  306 
Collodion,   117,  123,   130 
Cologne,  eau  de,  107 
Copra,  203,  211-215,  306 
Corn  oil,  183,  305 
Cotton,  112,  120,  129,  197 
Cocain,    88 
Condensite,    141 
Cordite,  18,   19 
Corn  products,  181-195,  305 
Coslett  process,  273 
Cottonseed  oil,  201 
Cowles,  248 
Creative  chemistry,  7 
Crookes,   Sir  \Yiliiam,   292,  299 
Curie,   Madame,   202 
Cyanamid,  30,   35,  299 
Cyanides,    32 

Diamond,  259-261,  308 
Doyle,  Sir  Arthur  Conan,  221 
Drugs,   synthetic,  6,  84,  301 
Duisberg,  151 
Dyestuffs,  60-92 

Edison,  84,  141 
Ehrlich,  86,  87 
Electric  furnace,  236-262,  307 


Fats,  196-217,  306 


309 


310 


INDEX 


Fertilizers,  37,  41,  43,  46,  300 

Flavors,   synthetic,   93-109 
Food,  synthetic,  94 
Formaldehyde,   136,   142 
Fruit   flavors,   synthetic,  99,    101 

Galalith,   142 

Gas  masks,  223,  226,  230,  231 

Gerhardt,  6,  7 

Glucose,    137,    184-189,    194,   305 

Glycerin,    194,    203 

Goldschmidt,   256 

Goodyear,  161 

Graphite,  258 

Guayule,    159,   304 

Guncotton,   17,   117,   125,    130 

Gunpowder,  14,   15,  22,  234 

Gutta  percha,  159 

Haber  process,  27,  28 
Hall,  C.  H.,  247 
Hare,  Robert,  237,  245,  307 
Harries,    149 
Helium,  236 
Hesse,  70,  72,  90 
Hofmann,  72,  80 
Huxley,    10 
Hyatt,  128,  129,  303 
Hvdrogen,  253-255 
Hydrogenation    of    oils,    202-205, 
306 

Indigo,  76,  79 

Iron,  236,  253,  262-270,  308 

Isoprene,   136,    146,    149,   150,   154 

Kelp  products,  53,  142 
Kekul^'s  dream,  66,  301 

Lard  substitutes,  209 

Lavoisier,  6 

Leather    substitutes,    124 

Leucite,   53 

Liebig,  38 

Linseed  oil,  202,  205,  270 

Magnesium,  283 

Maize  products,  181-196,  305 

Manganese,  278 

Margarin,    207-212,    307 

Mauve,  discovery  of,  74 

Meudeleef,  285,  291 


Mercerized  cotton,  115 
Moissan,   259 
Molybdenum,  283,  308 
Munition    manufacture    in   U.    S., 

33,  224,  299,  307 
Mushet,  279 

Musk,  synthetic,  96,  97,  106 
Mustard  gas,  224,  227-229 

Naphthalene,  4,  142,  154 

Nature   and    art,    8-13,    118,    122, 

133 
Nitrates,  Chilean,  22,  24,  30,  36 
Nitric  acid  derivatives,  20 
Nitrocellulose,    17,    117 
Nitrogen,    in    explosives,    14,    16, 

117,  299 
fixation,  24,  25,  29,  299 
Nitro-glycerin,   18,   117,  214 
Nobel,    18,    117 

Oils,  196-217,  306 
Oleomargarin,    207-212,   307 
Orange  blossoms,   99,    100 
Osmium,  28 
Ostwald,  29,  55 
Oxy-hydrogen   blowpipe,   246 

Paper,  111,  132 

Parker  process,  273 

Peanut  oil,  206,  211,  214,  300 

Perfumery,  Art  of,   103-108 

Perfumes,    svnthetic,    93-109,    302 

Perkin,   W.   H.,    148 

Perkin,   Sir  William,   72,   80,   102 

Pharmaceutical   chemistry,  6,  85- 

88 
Phenol,   18,   64,  84,   101,   102,   137 
Phonograph   records,   84,    141 
Phosphates,    56-59 
Phosgene,  224,  225 
Photographic   developers,  88 
Picric  acid,  18,  84,  85,  226 
Platinum,  28,   278,    280,   284,  286 
Plastics,   synthetic,    128-143 
Pneumatic  tires,  162 
Poisonous  gases  in  warfare,  218-' 

235    307 
Potash, '37,   45-56,   300 
Priestley,    150,   160 
Purple,  royal,  75,  79 
Pyralin,  132,  133 


INDEX 


311 


Pyrophoric  alloys,  290 
Pyroxylin,   17,   117,   125,   130 

Radium,  291,   295 
Eare  earths,  286-288,  308 
Redmanol,    140 
Rerasen,   Ira,    178 
Refractories,   251-252 
Resins,  synthetic,   135-143 
Rose  perfume,  93,  96,  97,  99,   105 
Rubber,  natural,    155-161,  304 
synthetic,    136,   145-163,  304 
Rumford,  Count,   160 
Rust,    protection    from,    262-275 

Saccharin,  178,  179 

Salicylic  acid,  88,  101 

Saltpeter,  Chilean,  22,  30,  36,  42 

Smith,  Provost,  237,  245,  307 

Smokeless  powder,   15 

Sodium,  148,  238,  247 

Soil  chemistry,  38,  39 

Soy  bean,  142,  211,  217,  306 

Starch,   137,   184,    189,    190 

Stassfort  salts.  47,  49,  55 

Stellites,  280,  308 

Sugar,  164-180,  304 

Sulfuric  acid,  57 

Tantalum,  282 
Terpenes,  100,  154 
Textile  industry,  5,   112,  121,  300 
Thermit,  256 

Thermodynamics,   Second   law   of, 
145 


Three  periods  of  progress,  3 
Tin  plating,  271 
Tilden,  146,  298 
Titanium,  278,  308 
TNT,  19,  21,  84,  299 
Trinitrotoluol,  19,  21,  84,  299 
Tropics,  value  of,  96,  156,  165,  196, 
206,  213,  216 

Schoop  process,  272 

Serpek  process,  31 

Silicon,  249,  253 

Smell,  sense  of,  97,  98,  103,  109 

Tungsten,  257,  277,  281,  308 

Uranium,  28 

Vanadium,  277,  280,  308 
Vanillin,  103 
Violet  perfume,  100 
Viscose,  116 
Vitamines,  211 
Vulcanization,  161 

Welding,  256 

Welsbach  burner,  287-289,  308 
Wheat  problem,  43,  299 
Wood,  distillation  of,  126,  127 
Wood  pulp,  112,  120,  303 

Ypres,  Use  of  gases  at,  221 

Zinc  plating,  271 


ARTIFICIAL  LIGHT 

Its  Influence  on  Civilization 
By  M.  LucKiESH 

Director  of  a  Research  Laboratory  of  the  General  Electric  Company, 

Author  of  "Color  and  Its  Applications/'  *'Light  and  Shade 

and  Their  Applications/*  "The  Lighting  Art/*  etc. 

This  is  an  enthusiastic  and  absorbingly  interesting  appreciation  and 
explanation  of  the  magical  accomplishments  of  artificial  light.  In  this  book, 
Mr.  Luckiesh  traces  the  history  of  the  development  of  artificial  light  and 
describes  its  influence  upon  human  progress.  He  begins  with  the  primitive 
man  helplessly  huddled  with  fear  and  cold  in  his  cave  as  the  last  rays  of  sun- 
set are  extinguished  by  darkness.  He  follows  the  progress  made  by  man 
when  he  discovers  a  method  for  kindling  a  fire  and  later  when  he  adapts  the 
fire  to  illuminate  his  dwelling.  Soon  man  is  able  to  create  new  ways  of  pro- 
ducing light,  and  as  artificial  light  becomes  more  abundant  and  less  expen- 
sive it  is  put  to  hundreds  of  new  uses  and  daily  becomes  more  and  more 
essential  to  the  progress  of  civilization. 

This  story  of  the  achievements  of  artificial  light  is  written  especially  for 
the  man  in  the  street  who  is  not  interested  in  technical  scientific  terms  and 
formulae,  but  who  looks  with  admiration  upon  the  huge  signs  which  flash 
and  sparkle  above  the  crowds  on  the  Great  White  Way  and  wants  to  know 
more  of  their  origin,  who  marvels  at  the  colors  and  brilliance  of  a  spectacular 
theatrical  production  and  desires  to  know  how  it  is  accomplished,  who  has 
read  in  the  newspaper  despatches  about  camouflaged  ships,  automobiles, 
roads  and  what  not  and  wonders  how  such  magic  is  conceived,  and  who 
takes  a  natural  delight  in  hearing  about  scientific  discoveries  when  they  are 
explained  in  the  simple,  vivid  language  he  understands  best. 

Profusely  illustrated  from  photographs 

At  all  Bookstores  TUC  rTMTITDV  Cf\    353  Fourth  Avenue 
Published  by    1  nH  Lull  1  UK  I    LU«  New  York  City 


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